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21448 


Copyright, 1898, 

BY 

WILLIAM H. YOUNG & COMPANY. 


All rights reserved. 

RECciV. - 


OF 


DEC 24 1898 






CONTENTS 


PACB 

I. Lolita I 

j2. A Legend of St. James 56 

3. Two Little Roman Beggars 60 

4. Summer Friends 87 

5. Palingenesis 88 

6. Pythagoras 117 

7. A Gloria 120 

8. From the Garden of a Friend 150 

9. A Soldier’s Daughter 175 

10. His Honor’s Daughter 182 

11. Loyalty 218 

12. A Dove of St. Mark’s 221 

13. Isabella Regnant 264 

14. An Evening in Rome 270 





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I 


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I 


I 


4 


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9 ' 




LOLITA, 


Gentle reader, do you know Cordova, 
once the “ Gem of the South,” and once the 
‘‘ Mecca of the West ; ” Cordova, which to 
the foreign mind suggests, first of all, rich 
leather hangings stamped and gilded with 
find gold, and such superb saddles, like carved 
ebony, or old ivory, as you see through plate- 
glass in the royal stables of Madrid ; Cor- 
dova, where you lose yourself in the nar- 
row, crooked streets, where the “ Gran 
Capitan ” meets you at every turn, and 
where they will hammer you a dear little 
mug out of a silver Spanish Dollar ? — do you 
know it, this charming old Cordova ? 

If you do, try to recollect a certain street 
curved like a new moon, with a blank wall on 
the shorter side and a pleasant house in the 
center of the longer curve. The wide outer 
door stands open by day, showing a glass 
door within, and glimpses of the palms, roses. 


2 


Autumn Leaves, 


and bird-cages of a lovely patio. Above the 
entrance a large double window lights the 
drawing-room on the second floor. 

On an April day, not many years ago, a 
tall gentleman, wrapped in a cloak, stood 
leaning against this wall, his eyes immovably 
fixed upon the window. The day was warm, 
— too warm for a cloak on the promenade ; 
but Don Gonzalo del Aguilar needed it to 
protect his shoulders from the unsunned 
stone. He was not walking that afternoon : 
he had not stirred for' an hour, perhaps 
would not move for hours to come. He 
was paying his court, h la Cordova, to the 
Senorita Dolores de Mora, — otherwise Lolita. 

Looking intently at the window, one might 
half perceive, half divine, the girl’s beauti- 
ful head bent over her embroidery ; and the 
lover’s eyes at least knew when she lifted her 
face a little to glance his way, or to address 
her aunt, the Senora de Lebrana. The 
Senora sat out of range of the gentleman’s 
eyes, dozing over a book. She was a child- 
less widow of fifty-five years, and, her name 
also being Dolores, she was called Lola. She 
was the protectress of her orphan niec'e, 
whom she tenderly loved, and who regarded 
her as a mother. 


Lolita, 


3 


Del Aguilar was a Cordovan of respectable 
family. He was handsome, black-eyed, 
serious, intelligent and honorable. He had 
never been out of Spain ; but he knew its 
chief cities well. It was at Madrid that he had 
first seen Lolita, walking with her aunt in the 
gardens of the Retiro, and been smitten as 
by a sunstroke. Misery had mingled with 
his love when first he saw her, for she had 
seemed to be quite of another world than 
his; but when he knew that she was the 
niece of the Senora de Lebrana, of his own 
town, he was for a moment, at least, trium- 
phant. If her heart is not already given 
away, it shall be mine,” he thought. And 
he lost no time in ascertaining that Lolita 
not only was not promised, but was not 
definitely sought. 

As a rolling stone gathers no moss, so 
a traveling maiden gathers no husband, 
though many may admire her. Lolita and 
her aunt had been traveling for many years. 

But the sefiora mistook her niece in being 
sure that there had been no love because 
there had been no wooing and no promise. 
Three years before, when she was fifteen 
years of age, Lolita had given her heart away 
to L^on Lesage, the eldest son of an old 


4 


Autumn Leaves, 


school-fellow of her aunt’s, at whose chateau 
in France they had passed two delightful 
summer months. It is true that her heart 
had been unsought and unaccepted ; but she 
was pure, proud and generous, and she still 
said to herself, “ It is his.” 

When, therefore, she glanced up from her 
embroidery and saw that motionless, dark 
figure outside, looking, as she said to her- 
self, like an ebony Ecce Homo fixed to the 
opposite wall, she was annoyed and impatient, 
though at the same time conscious of some 
subtile soothing to her pride and tenderness 
in such patience of devotion. She pitied 
him that she hated him so. Perhaps she un- 
consciously pitied herself a little, too. 

“ I wish that he would go away ! ” she ex- 
claimed, at length. “ It is ridiculous to stand 
there staring. What would any stranger 
think who should see him ? ” (Her thought 
was, What would L6on think?” For he 
had said that after three years he should 
travel in Spain ; and the three years were 
past.) 

The senora roused herself. “Thou dost 
not deserve that he should stand there wait- 
ing the whole day long for a sign of pity,” she 
said. “Thy American blood blinds thee to 


Lolita. 


5 


all things really dignified and serious; and 
thy travels have spoiled thee. Ah, why did 
my brother Luis go across the sea for a 
wife ? ” 

Lolita had heard this lament so often that 
she no longer resented it, the less that she 
had no recollection of either father or mother. 
Moreover, her recollections of the United 
States were but vague, and not over-pleasant. 
When the Senora de Lebrana received news 
of her brother’s death, she was in the first 
anguish of her widowhood ; and, though she 
went across the sea most willingly to take 
charge of his child, she was but a sad com- 
panion for the little one. They had lingered 
there for months. The senora sought dis- 
traction in going from city to city, and com- 
fort in finding fault with almost everything. 
She was a widow, alas ! and alone in the 
world, save for this babe of five ^ y -eata • but, 
then, she was the widow of di(^pania^! It 
just crossed her mind that to be^he widow 
of an American might be a consolation for 
having been his wife. 

Having fully investigated the faults of 
Americans, the lady went to Cuba, which she 
found a far more respectable country ; thence 
to England, thence to France, Germany, and 


6 


Autumn Leaves. 


Italy, and back to France again. And at 
length she ventured into Spain. But, except 
for occasional brief visits on business, when 
Lolita did not accompany her, she had not 
taken up her abode in Cordova till the month 
before we find her there. 

“ Thou lookest on love and marriage 
lightly,” she said, with some severity. 
“ Would it please thee that a man should 
hide his love, as if he were ashamed of it ? 
Marriage is something serious and holy ; and 
when an honest maiden gives herself, she 
should do it as if she were of worth ; and she 
should wish a man to woo her favor as a 
crown of honor, and not by stealth. A 
Spanish gentleman does not take his wife in 
secret, nor does a Spanish senorita go to her 
husband in the dark.” 

Lolita blushed, and remained silent ; and 
the senora, fatigued by her eloquent effort, 
returned to her book, and was soon nodding 
again. 

It is true that he is good and noble,” 
thought the girl, stealing a glance through 
the window. But I cannot help finding it 
ridiculous, his standing there so. What 
would Leon think ? ” 

Her thoughts wandered far away, led by 


Lolita. 


1 


the lure of that name. She saw a broad and 
fertile landscape, with a bright chateau set in 
the midst of flowery gardens and a bosky 
park on a hillside. The windows stood 
open to the joyous summer breeze and 
cloudless sunshine. The green country was 
dotted with villages, a chateau peeped out 
here and there from its park, a river glim- 
mered like a silver thread in the distance, a 
train of cars, small like a caterpillar, crept 
across the plain. On the low horizon was a 
mist, and outlines that were neither hill nor 
tree. 

Cette ville 
Aux longs cris, 

Qui profile 
Son front gris, 

Des toits freles, 

Cent tourelles, 

Clochers gr^les, 

C’est Paris. 

Near by, quite under the wall of the park, 
there was a rolling of many iron wheels, a 
puff of white smoke, and a train of cars 
stopped at the little station there. A gentle- 
man entered the gate, and disappeared and 
reappeared in windings of the avenue ; while 
she, hidden behind the curtain of her bed- 
room window, watched him till he reached 


8 


Autumn Leaves, 


the wide graveled space set with medallions 
of flowers in front of the chateau, and disap- 
peared into the house. 

L^on was tall, blond and graceful, with a 
handsome thin face and an airy manner. He 
had ideas, like most Parisians, and he an- 
nounced them and expatiated on them with 
great freedom, — sometimes to the horror of 
his family. He was a radical, with the loosest 
possible theories concerning the government 
of the human race and its political divisions. 

“ What is authority ? he would ask. “ It 
is simply that I, being free, have conferred 
on another man the power to deprive me of 
freedom, property, and even of life, if I do 
wrong; while at the same time I have no 
permission to punish him if he does wrong. 
When he corrects me, it is law and virtue 
and order; if I attempt to correct him, it is 
rebellion, vice and disorder." 

The young man’s mother, who adored him, 
and to whom he behaved very prettily, had 
always an excuse for him. “ It is only that 
he is fastidious," she said. Since he cannot 
banish the low classes to another planet, he 
wishes them to be so cleansed that they may 
not spoil the atmosphere of this while he has 
to breathe it." 


Lolita. 


9 


The play-actor ! ” the Senora de Lebrana 
said privately to her niece. He wants to 
be taken for a second Mirabeau.” 

For Lolita, she believed in and adored 
him. She hung upon his lips, his words, his 
gestures. She wasted away and grew sick 
with the thought of leaving him. 

And he? He was scarcely conscious of 
the dark little Spanish girl, though he made 
himself charming to her when politeness re- 
quired. He had an impression that she was 
thin and unformed, silent, too, and appar- 
ently a little dull. He observed that her 
eyes were fine, he had met them two or three 
times earnestly gazing at him ; but he con- 
sidered them inexpressive. It had even 
occurred to him that such eyes in the head 
of one who knew how to use them might be 
a fortune. He knew certain females in Paris 
who would have made such eyes famous. 
Of course she admired him. Everybody 
admired him. That went sans dire. 

But when the hour of parting came, and 
the senora and her niece had taken leave of 
all the family gathered at the little station to 
bid them farewell, Leon Lesage encountered 
a look from those inexpressive eyes which 
startled him momentarily out of his indiffer- 


10 


Autumn Leaves, 


ence. The train had begun to move, amid a 
fluttering of handkerchiefs and a kissing of 
finger-tips, and Lolita leaned from the win- 
dow for one last glance at him, at him alone. 
The large dark eyes were full of tears and 
wild with sorrow, the lips quivered, and the 
small gloved hands were clasped on her 
breast. Her whole heart rushed to him in 
that instant when their eyes met, full of pas- 
sionate and adoring affection. 

It was but an instant. The senora drew 
her niece back, and the train bore them away. 
But that instant was enough for both. L^on 
had started, smiled slightly, and leaned for- 
ward with a keen, questioning glance. Lo- 
lita saw that she had betrayed herself, and did 
not care now. It was even a consolation to 
her that he should know. Her love was like 
the morning star, shining in the dim dawn of 
womanhood. The brightness was all above, 
the earth in shadow yet. Only later, when a 
husband was proposed to her, did she realize 
what rapture it would have been had he been 
the one proposed ; and only then did she 
begin to blush for her self-betrayal, and to 
remember with a shiver of wounded pride 
that there had been something like amuse- 
ment in that last smile of his. 


Lolita. 


II 


It was amusement. “ Little witch ! ” he 
had thought, turning away. If I had 
known, it might have been interesting.” 

And then he forgot her, as he expected 
her to forget him. 

To be amused, to have sensations, to live 
in a constant variety of exciting incidents, — 
that was his ideal of happiness. 

I will be perfectly indifferent when he 
comes,” she thought, bending over her em- 
broidery in Cordova. “ I will make him think 
that I have forgotten everything. He will 
not find me quite so stupid and ugly as I was 
at Chateau Lesage.” 

She smiled, and, seeing that her aunt was 
asleep, rose and went softly to the mirror. 
How sweetly the image there smiled back to 
her ! It was not the face of a heartbroken 
maiden loving unsought, but of one who 
might break hearts for a pastime. Her skin 
had become so clear as to seem white, the 
cheeks narrowed to a deliciously-rounded 
chin, the dark hair sparkled in the light with 
glancing lines of pure gold, the throat was 
full, the mouth exquisite, the eyes — perhaps 
Lolita had learned to use them a little, though 
she was no coquette. 

Oh to be in Paris ! to be in any great city 


12 


Autumn Leaves, 


where youth and beauty enjoys its full em- 
pire ! What a shame to be shut up in a town 
where the streets were like the silent corridors 
of a house from which she could not escape ! 

Turning impatiently from the mirror, she 
went to the piano, and began to sing a song 
that she had learned in Italy : 

Mamma diletta, 

Non posso filar; 

Qui prigionera 
Non posso restar. 

La casa k stretta, 

La ruota non va, 

II fil si spezza — 

Vo’ uscia di qua ! 

The seHora started, rubbed her eyes, and 
looked about her. “ It is time for us to go 
to Benediction,” she said. “ I really believe 
that I have been asleep. Ring for our man- 
tillas, child.” 

Dear Aunt Lola, let’s go to Seville for 
Holy Week,” the girl prayed, as she laid the 
heavy lace over the senora’s gray hair. It 
is so lonely and silent here ; and everybody 
goes to Seville in Holy Week, — that is, all 
the strangers.” She blushed slightly, then 
added, with a laugh, “ And we are strangers, 
you know.” 

The senora hurried her downstairs, Lolita 


Lolita, 


13 


turning her head aside not to see her lover, 
who made haste to salute the elder lady rev- 
erentially as they passed into the street. 

‘‘ I am afraid that the rooms will be all 
taken,” she said. “ One must engage rooms 
weeks in advance at such a time. Of course 
we cannot intrude on our friends.” She 
hesitated. Perhaps she herself found Cor- 
dova a little dull after their wandering life. 

Maybe the bishop may know of some place. 
I might ask him. But we are already in Pas- 
sion Week.” 

“ Oh, do ask him. Aunt Lola ! ” cried Lo- 
lita. “ It is so good of you ! And you know 
he will do anything you ask of him.” 

They reached the great tower, and passed 
through the Court of Oranges into the pil- 
lared solitude beyond. There was a far-off 
sound of chanting, but no person in sight. 
The senora began murmuring her prayers as 
they hurried on to the Capilla Mayor, where 
Su Majestad was already exposed. They 
were late, and therefore kept a little back 
from the small congregation gathered be- 
tween the choir and the altar. Lolita drew 
her mantilla across her face and glanced about 
to see if Del Aguilar had followed them. 

Yes, there he was, kneeling apart against 


14 


Autumn Leaves. 


the chapel of San Pedro, his head bowed 
down. Inside the chapel were two strangers, 
accompanied by a guide, examining the in- 
terlaced arches and mosaics of the Moslem 
sanctuary, and bending to see the circle worn 
in the marble floor by pilgrim feet in times 
gone by treading their mystic seven times 
round. 

Lolita turned quickly towards the altar, 
conscience-stricken at having caught herself 
looking at gentlemen in church. But when 
the function was over she did venture one 
furtive peep and a faint pitying smile at Del 
Aguilar hastening down to the great door to 
wait for them. The two strangers had also 
gone down to that part of the mosque, and 
were looking at the capitals of the lower 
columns near the entrance. Lolita went out 
through the side door leading to the bishop’s 
house. 

Don Gonzalo, who had knelt by a shaded 
pillar in order to see them pass, had then the 
mortification of being left. He knew where 
they must have gone, but determined not to 
show himself again before dark. He would 
go and look up at her window when the full 
moon should shine upon it, and hope against 
hope that she would look out for a moment. 


Lolita, 


IS 

Under a tiny grating on the pillar by his side 
was a crucifix scratched in the stone by the 
finger-nails of a Christian captive chained 
there long ago by the Moors. He looked at 
it, and thought : If patience and love could 
so wear the stone, may they not impress her 
heart ? ” and, bending, kissed the cold iron 
bars above that sign of faith and sorrow and 
patience. 

Meantime, the Sehora de Lebrana was 
talking with the bishop, and Lolita was wait- 
ing for her in the episcopal garden. The 
dear old garden ! she liked it better than 
almost any other place in Cordova. Having 
wandered about and gathered her hands full 
of flowers, she seated herself in a small arbor 
walled and covered with orange-trees, where 
all the ceiling hung golden with oranges. 
They were certainly going to Seville, she 
thought, smiling, laying rose to rose, with 
her head aside to watch the growing effect. 
The bishop was sure to know some one there. 
And then ! — 

As she sat there, there came a sound of 
voices, and through the leafy arbor walls she 
saw the two gentlemen of the church entering 
with the gardener. It would never do for 
her to be found there alone. Rising hastily, 


i6 


Autumn Leaves. 


as they went to one side of the garden, she 
went to the other, keeping behind the shrubs. 
And so, listening for their voices when she 
could not see them, she made the circuit of 
the garden, coming back to the arbor as they 
went towards the house again. 

But as they paused to give a fee to the 
gardener, one of them saw that pretty figure 
under the oranges, and whispered his dis- 
covery to the other. There was a momentary 
pause : then, with a word of excuse to the 
gardener, they retraced their steps. 

“ How indelicate ! ” exclaimed Lolita, crim- 
son with embarrassment and displeasure. 

They approached slowly, stopping from 
time to time with the pretense of admiring a 
plant or a flower, but keeping their object in 
view. The path they took passed through 
the arbor, where she stood slightly turned 
away from them. They felt sure of her, for 
there was no longer any escape, and she 
would be obliged to turn and stand aside to 
let them pass. What a charming adventure 
to catch a Spanish girl without her dueiia ! 
— if only she should be pretty ! 

Their steps sounded near, at the very en- 
trance, and Leon Lesage had already assumed 
the earnest and admiring look suitable to the 


Lolita. 


17 


occasion, when the Spanish girl, instead of 
facing them, turned her back abruptly, and 
went to the side of the arbor, where, pressing 
her face to the vine-like orange stems, she 
looked out in the opposite direction to that 
they were to take. 

Mortified, yet amused, at the decided rebuff, 
the two withdrew in haste. 

But Lolita’s heart was palpitating with 
something besides anger. These strangers 
had spoken to each other in French ; and the 
voice of one of them, though it murmured but 
a word or two, had thrilled her with its tone. 

She looked after them as they went. Oh, 
how could she have failed to recognize that 
slight, elastic figure ! 

They had scarcely disappeared when she 
ran out to question the gardener. 

I did not tell them your name, senorita, 
though they asked me. It was impudent in 
them to go back to you, and they were well 
punished.” 

The old man was looking very indignant. 

“ Were they angry ? ” she asked, breath- 
lessly. 

“ They laughed, senorita,” the gardener 
replied ; “ but I do not think that they felt 

very proud.” 

2 


i8 Autumn Leaves. 

Presently her aunt appeared, all smiles. 
The bishop had been very kind, and would 
himself write and secure rooms for them. 
They might not be fine, but would be very 
comfortable. During their whole walk home 
the senora was occupied in singing the bishop’s 
praises, and did not observe how her niece’s 
cheeks were glowing. 

“ Did not I see a gentleman going away 
from here ? ” Lolita asked of the servant who 
opened the door for them. 

No ; no one had been there. 

And no one came that night, nor the next 
day. L^on Lesage had, in fact, remained 
only one night in Cordova, and hoped that 
his mother’s friend would hear nothing about 
it. With gayer cities to visit, it was scarcely 
worth while, he thought, to waste any time 
on a very dark-complexioned old woman, who 
had tedious ideas on etiquette and propriety, 
and more names than you could write on the 
outside of the largest envelope ever directed 
to a private person on private business. His 
mother had charged him with many compli- 
ments for the senora ; but it would be easy 
enough to find an excuse for not delivering 
them. 

As for Lolita, he laughed at the memory 


Lolita. 


^9 


of her last impassioned look. It might be 
amusing to know if she still adored him, but 
was not worth the annoyance of a call, and 
the possible detention in Cordova for another 
day. Suppose the senora should invite him 
to dinner ? He trembled at the thought. 

“ I would as lief go to a great dinner in 
London,” he said, talking the matter over 
with his friend. 

The bishop was as good as his word ; and 
on Thursday morning of Holy Week the 
senora and her niece stepped from a carriage 
in the Plaza de la Constitucion, and went on 
foot to their lodgings in the near Calle de las 
Sierpes, no carriage being allowed to enter 
that street. Their apartment was very high 
up ; but they considered themselves fortunate 
in being housed so well on such short notice. 
They had one of those pleasant, large cham- 
bers one finds in Spanish houses, where the 
small bedroom, with its glass door and side- 
lights, is taken out of one corner, leaving a 
salon in front, and at the side a corridor 
which needs only a curtain to make it an 
anteroom. Their balcony gave them a full 
view of the street and a part of the near plaza. 

Lolita would have been full of delight but 
for the one stinging thought of Leon L^sage 


20 


Autumn Leaves. 


and the scene in the bishop’s garden. It was 
impossible to reconcile his conduct there with 
her ideal of a grand gentleman. Against her 
will, even, she found something low and 
mean in it. 

Everything was prepared for the proces- 
sion. Rows of chairs were placed at either 
side of the street and quite across the adjoin- 
ing plaza, and the crowd increased rapidly. 
All the white house-fronts were full of bal- 
conies, and all the windows open. People 
began to take the chairs, and there were 
groups in many balconies, chiefly strangers 
in Seville. 

Now and then some person stepped out 
through a long drawing-room or chamber 
window, leaned to look up the street, then 
returned to the company inside. Far up a 
house-front, almost at the roof, a girl sat 
reading her prayer-book under the blue sky, 
quite isolated from the world in that airy 
desert. From another height a parrot, re- 
sentful of the festal stir it could not take a 
nearer part in, screamed itself hoarse with 
insults to all about, raging at destiny and 
mankind. Through the full, deep murmur 
of carefully-restrained voices rose the pene- 
trating trebles of a group of children talking 


Lolita, 


21 


together. A scattered procession of lookers- 
on strolled up and down between the rows 
of chairs. Among them were two girls with- 
out escort, who wore long white feathers in 
their hats and carried full-dress fans, which 
they flung open and shut and twirled cease- 
lessly, seeming to believe themselves very 
Spanish indeed ; while to Spanish ladies, 
whose black fans rested unopened in their 
hands or on their knees, they were as strange 
as giraffes. A Turk in a picturesque costume 
of red and blue moved in and out among the 
people with slippers for sale thrust one int:' 
the other so as to form a huge crescent. / An 

r ?5ld woman smilingly and whisperingly offered 
pretty little iron hammers, all in one piece, 
for a peseta each ; and a wicked old woman 
she was ; for should you try to draw a nail 
out of your trunk with this shining tool, it 
would instantly go into two pieces in your 
■\ hand, as if made of dough instead of iron. 

Almost in one of the windows opposite 
the Europa Hotel a pretty woman sat lacing 
on her slippers and glancing now and then 
at a certain balcony of the hotel to see if the 
gentlemen observed her coquetry and what 
a pretty foot she had. 

There were two gentlemen in this balcony, 


22 


Autumn Leaves. 


and they both thought her foot very pretty, 
and looked at it through their glasses. Two 
women, a young girl and a woman of about 
thirty, stepped into the balcony behind these 
young men. 

“ Whom are you looking at, L^on ? ” asked 
the younger, coming close to him. 

He turned at once, taking off his hat with 
great ceremony to the two. “ Don’t be so 
familiar in public, Lisette,” he muttered im- 
patiently, under his breath. “ Go to the 
other end of the balcony, you and Marie, 
and behave yourselves properly.” 

The girl colored with vexation and obeyed.^ 
iir the dense crowd at the turn of tHe 
street below a new movement was visible. 
There was something like a picture in the air 
over their heads, and a sound of music was 
audible above the subdued murmur of voices. 
The procession was coming. 

The balconies filled immediately. The 
white house-fronts stretching on both sides 
of the narrow street became almost black. 
The Spanish ladies, in black dresses and 
mantillas, seated themselves gravely, as if in 
church, with the decorous reserve of manner 
proper to a religious ceremony and a public 
place. They waved now and then, with great 


Lolita. 


23 


discretion, their small black fans, and studi- 
ously looked at nothing in particular. The 
strangers talked eagerly, and leaned over the 
railings to gaze at the swaying of forms and 
colors between the multitudinous balconies 
far up the street. They had for the most 
part that carelessness of manner observable 
even in passably well-bred people when they 
are excited and among strangers. They used 
opera-glasses, too, which the natives did not. 
They had come to see a show, and forgot 
that solemnity, or at least seriousness, was 
an important part of it. 

The young Frenchman looked at the 
opposite houses as closely as politeness would 
allow, then turned to look at his own side of 
the street. Downward towards the coming 
procession it was a dark profile of living 
forms that lessened as the street seemed to 
close dimly behind the heaving mass that 
filled it. To the left were only three or four 
houses between him and the sunny dazzle of 
the plaza. As his glance ran up the house- 
fronts in this direction, it was caught by a 
vision which filled his eyes with a startled 
delight. There was a high balcony that 
stood out quite against the sky, and a young 
girl leaned there motionless and alone, seem- 


24 


Autumn Leaves. 


ing to be painted on the blue. He could see 
her delicate profile, and even the long curling 
lashes of her eyes. Dark hair dropped in 
heavy waves above the forehead, two or three 
light rings escaping. A transparent veil 
allowed the lovely head and shoulders to re- 
veal their shape. She was in black from 
head to foot, but her ungloved hands showed 
pearly white against the iron railing. A 
basket of loose roses and violets hung on her 
arm. Later, when the procession should be 
underneath, these flowers would come flutter- 
ing down over some image as if they fell 
from heaven. 

For five minutes she stood there, as mo- 
tionless as one of those angels you may see 
looking down from a skyey balcony painted 
in the dome of some old church in Italy. 
Then two elder ladies came out and hid her 
from his sight. She moved, and seated her- 
self beyond them. 

"'^Two ladies came also into the balcony sep- 
arated from the Frenchman only by a railing. 
They seated themselves, and began to talk 
American English without a suspicion, appar- 
ently, that any of the many persons above, 
below, and around could understand them. 

“ I have come chiefly to see the Madonna’s 


Lolita, 


25 


robes again/’ said one. “ I was here last 
year, and those embroideries have haunted 
me ever since. I want to find out if it is 
possible to buy one of them. Fancy going 
to a grand reception with a train of that 
gold-wrought velvet ! Sarah has got a lovely 
reception-dress made out of two chasubles and 
some lace flounces that belonged to a Pope. 
There were two pretty good point flounces 
with the cuffs, and these just made the dress 
out with the two chasubles, all roses and 
lilies on white satin. I tell her to look out 
when she wears that dress not to salute her 
friends with a Dominus vobiscum instead of 
a ‘how do you do?’ I vow I should be 
afraid of being forced to speak Latin, whether 
I knew it or not, in such a dress. Now, a 
Madonna dress has no danger in it. Doesn’t 
the little black wooden Madonna of Atocha 
in Madrid wear the old clothes of the Spanish 
queens ? And, by the way, how Isabella II. 
must have grown since . she wore — and was 
stabbed in — that red velvet with the gold 
work ! It wouldn’t go half round her now. 
To be sure, they may have had to take it in 
for the Madonna. We used to go the^^ 
Saturdays, you know, for the Salve Regii 
Here they come ! ” 



26 


Autumn Leaves, 


The procession was passing underneath. 
There were strange figures of men with white 
linen veils over their faces, tall, conical white 
caps, and long white robes, followed by other 
white-robed figures wearing purple caps. As 
they paused, detained for a moment by the 
crowd, they communicated with one another 
by signs, like mutes, and looked about them 
through the two eye-holes in their veils, the 
points of their tall caps describing large 
curves in the air with every movement of 
their heads. 

Then came an immense platform, borne 
on men’s heads. These men were hidden by 
the deep valance, but thirty pairs of feet 
were visible below. Above were colored 
statues of the size of life : Christ led away 
from Pilate by four soldiers in the front ; at 
the back, Pilate, dressed in scarlet, seated on 
a throne. The band that followed played a 
funeral march, and from far down the street 
was faintly heard the blaring of many 
trumpets. 

Apparently no one was much interested 
in the condemnation to death of the man 
called Jesus Christ except a fastidious and 
critical young American gentleman, who ex- 
pressed his surprise, not to say displeasure. 


Lolita, 


27 


that the people did not prostrate themselves 
before this tableau, as he had expected they 
would. He made, however, no motion to 
set them the example of prostration. Not 
far from him, a stranger lady, oblivious of 
everything else, followed with a profound 
and solemn gaze that form of the Divine 
Martyr on whom no flowers fell. The plat- 
form swayed a little, and, seen over the heads 
of the crowd. He appeared to be walking on 
a troubled sea. 

Presently the flowers came fluttering down 
from balcony and window. A platform with 
a canopy was passing, where a Madonna 
stood amid a blaze of candles. Jewels 
crowned her pure and lovely brow, jewels 
glittered on her folded hands, and a stupen- 
dous train of black velvet, encrusted with 
sparkling gold flowers and leaves and long 
curling stems, swept the platform and was 
borne up by men walking behind. 

sighed a voice, “ if they would only 
sell that train in my time ! They are sure to 
sell it sooner or later. It must be twenty- 
five feet long. I would wear it in the char- 
acter of Night. The seven Pleiades should 
hold the train, — one all in black and veiled, 
with an extinguished torch, the others in 


28 


Autumn Leaves^ 


violet tulle, with each a silver star. They 
should be six small, pale girls, close to- 
gether, — a nebula. The seventh should be a 
little apart. Who knows ? There may be a 
revolution in Seville and the churches 
robbed.'’ 

"*“nTe noble company that followed was at 
once superb and exquisite. Nothing else in 
the whole procession gave so vivid an idea of 
the splendid features of a squalid past as those 
proudly -stepping men in their costumes of 
purple velvet, gold-embroidered even to the 
buskins. They wore long, flesh-colored stock- 
ings, and the short mantle fastened and drop- 
ping from one shoulder, and in the right 
hand a sword, or fasces, or a halberd. Their 
slow marching was an art, a rhythmical mo- 
tion which had not even an instantaneous 
pause. The step was a fourfold gesture, 
which might be marked in quadruple time : 
lift, suspend, point, fall, — so the foot went. 
Their casques bore a plume of long, white 
ostrich feathers, radiating from a center in a 
star with five, six, seven, or eight points. 
Seen from above as they passed, these plumy 
stars looked like a bed of gigantic anemones, 
tossed and nodding in a breeze, as the wear- 
ers moved their heads, gazing haughtily about 


Lolita, 


29 


them. They had an art in tossing their 
plumes as in moving their feet. 

One after another came the strange, beau- 
tiful companies as the day waned. They 
grew visionary in the gloaming. One Ma- 
donna after another was borne over the peo- 
ple’s heads, her robes alive with gold, her 
face pallid with sorrow. A terrible crucifix 
started out in the light of brightening torches. 
A band of trumpets rang wildly echoing be- 
tween the near walls. There was a palm-tree 
in the air, and figures seated under it, in a 
sudden vision of the desert or the East. 

Lamps were lighted in the rooms behind 
the balconies, and the plaza, out of which the 
sunshine had faded away, grew again a blaze 
of light, and heaved with crowded figures. 
The Sierpes was a mass of human beings and 
twinkling waxlights. Christ crucified with 
the thieves, and with women prostrate at the 
foot of the cross, appeared, stirred, and moved 
down through mid-air over that throbbing 
life. The eye followed those figures, that 
were terrible in their anguish and alive with 
shape and color, till they grew dim across the 
plaza. 

Then every one drew breath with a long 
sigh. The procession was over. 


30 


Autumn Leaves. 


L^on Lesage had scarcely seen it. His 
brain was full of stories of Seville ; of starry 
nights when the sky is blue, and a white, soft 
hand slips through the dark bars of a lower 
window, and a fragrant whisper follows ; of a 
street-door left ajar in the still, deep hours, 
and the rustle of a robe heard within ; of bal- 
conies scaled, and the chorded murmur of 
guitar-strings unwarily brushed ; of a furtive 
hand-clasp, or a note given in the friendly 
shadows or pushing crowd of the cathedral, 
and a gliding form all wrapped in black, from 
which a starry eye peeps out. And eye, hand, 
breath and rustling robe were all hers, this 
beauty in her balcony set out against the sky, 
and who had seen him ! 

How could he reach her ? Their eyes had 
met in the golden twilight, and he had seen 
her face grow rosy at his gaze. 

All the world went to the cathedral that 
evening to see the Monumento and hear the 
Miserere. The music was over at ten, the 
last candle extinguished in the Tenebrario; 
but the greater part of the crowd still lin- 
gered. 'Some wandered in the wide, dim spaces 
behind the Capilla Mayor, where scattered 
lamps from the surrounding chapels made a 
twilight that deepened to dark night up the 


Lolita, 


31 


soaring columns and tremendous arches of 
the roof. A few were gathered in the space 
between the choir and the grand altar. Here 
there was only the single sanctuary-lamp ; 
but a pinnacle of fire visible over the wall of 
the choir turned the darkness to a soft twi- 
light, glittered along the pipes of the two 
organs, on the brass railing guarding the long 
passage between choir and altar, on the great 
silver lamp, the candlesticks, the pulpit, and 
shone full in the face of L^on Lesage, who 
stood erect there, his fingers resting lightly 
on the brass railing, his eyes fixed on that 
pointed cone of fire far up in the roof. He 
knew that a pair of eyes near by him glanced 
at him every moment, and he stood there in 
order to be fully recognized, and by no means 
afraid of the result of the examination. 

Two ladies were on their knees by the 
Tenebrario, — an elderly one, whose face was 
turned away, and a young, slender girl, whose 
m.antilla covered all but the eyes ; and these 
eyes gazed at him. Some outline of a half- 
discovered brow like that of his vision of the 
afternoon had made him follow her to this 
spot, and show that he followed her. 

Farther back, a man wrapped in a cloak 
knelt against a column and watched the two, 


32 


Autumn Leaves. 


the veiled girl who peeped so slyly, and the 
stranger who from time to time made a cer- 
tain passionate pantomime without looking 
at her, but aware of her glance as he pressed 
his hand to his heart or lips or held his arm 
tight across his breast. 

Presently the ladies rose and went down 
past the choir to where in the lower nave was 
built up the great Holy-Thursday monument, 
all white and gold, story after story, dimin- 
ishing to a crucifix far up in the roof, and all 
a blaze of candles and silver lamps. Here 
the pavement was strewn with kneeling fig- 
ures, an illuminated crowd near the Monu- 
mento, scattered figures and faces in chiaro- 
scuro farther back, and forms that seemed 
to be carved in ebony down nearer the en- 
trance or leaning against the railings of 
chapels in the sides, five aisles apart. 

The two gentlemen followed, Del Aguilar 
taking a distant place near the door, the 
Frenchman keeping close to the ladies, won- 
dering if the girl were trying to baffle or to 
lead him. The two had pushed half through 
the dense kneeling crowd between the choir 
and the monument, and when he followed 
them they dropped on their knees there, and 
left him standing. Monsieur L^on wore his 


Lolita, 


33 


stand-up trousers, and feared to kneel in 
them : he therefore crossed to the other side 
and waited for the ladies to rise. 

When at length they did so, he started ; 
for the face of the elder lady was turned 
towards him for an instant, and he recog- 
nized his mother’s friend. 

“ Bah ! ” he muttered ; it is the little 
Spaniard, after all.” 

Annoyed at himself for having lost so much 
time and perhaps compromised himself with 
his dark-browed adorer, he sauntered off to- 
wards the door. It would now be his duty 
to call on the Senora de Lebrana, since her 
niece had evidently recognized him. 

Meantime, Lolita and her aunt had come 
upon some friends just rising to go away. 

“ Aunt Lola,” whispered the girl, breath- 
lessly, “ take Maria’s arm, and let me go out 
with the Senora Loyola. I want to speak to 
her.” 

The exchange was rapidly made, and the 
senora passed out of the church on the arm 
of her friend’s maid, while Lolita went with 
the lady she had chosen. She passed out 
with her head uplifted and her fair face un- 
covered to the full light of a lamp above the 
door. 


3 


34 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ Lolita/' said her friend, when they were 
outside, “ who was that young man with the 
blonde mustachios, who started forward and 
pressed his hand to his heart as you passed 
by him ? ” 

“ A friend of Aunt Lola’s," she replied. 

The senora, like all good French and 
Spanish chaperons, had walked behind her 
young charge through the crowded doorw^ay. 
If you let a girl follow, some one may press 
her hand, or leave a note in it, or whisper a 
word of love, while your back is turned. 

L6on had not only seen the face so pas- 
sionately sought and found it fairer than at 
first ; he had caught the watchful glance of 
the duena. He followed, and the lady glanced 
back at him over her shoulder. He turned 
away for a moment, pretending to go in an- 
other direction ; and when he looked for them 
again they had disappeared. 

He loves me without knowing who I 
am," Lolita said to herself as she went home- 
ward, and she laughed mockingly. There 
was not a rag of mist left of all that golden 
cloud of romance which had once enveloped 
her thoughts of him. He had himself dis- 
pelled the illusion. 

The procession was repeated on Friday, 


Lolita. 


35 


but Lolita did not return to the balcony. 
L^on watched for her in vain. He wandered 
out at night in the hope of meeting her. The 
sky was blue, the air was soft, the streets 
were full of people all night. 

“ She knows that I will seek her,” he 
thought. 

But he sought in vain. 

In the afternoon of Easter Sunday Lolita 
and her aunt, with all the world of Seville, 
went to the opening bull-fight of the season. 

They arrived rather late. The great circle 
was already alive with twelve thousand faces 
in a many-colored mosaic, soldiers and the 
people sitting in the sun, the gentry and all 
who could pay well on the shady side. The 
procession of performers had made their en- 
trance and exit, the band had ceased playing, 
the key of the toril had been delivered to the 
black-vested officer who had ambled across 
the arena on his black Andalusian mare to 
receive it, and the picadores were at their 
posts, set at a distance from one another in 
front of the barrier. 

Lolita gave a swift glance around after 
having taken her seat, and perceived both of 
her lovers not far away. But neither of them 
was looking for her : they were gazing where 


36 


Autumn Leaves. 


all eyes were turned, at the gate behind which 
the bull was waiting to enter. A profound 
and electric silence reigned over the multitude. 
Then a trumpet sounded, the gate was opened, 
the black front of the beast presented itself, 
and he trotted lightly forward into the arena. 

The gate closed behind him forever. 

At the same instant a strange, half-human 
shriek was heard, and the horse of the picador 
next the right side of the gate fell back on 
his haunches, crying out and trembling with 
terror. The bandage had not been well 
adjusted over his eyes, and he had seen the 
arena and his adversary. Fortunately, the 
bull had directed himself to the left, and took 
no notice of the frightened animal, which was 
hurried out and replaced by another. Neither 
did he take any notice of the picadores beside 
his path, nor of anything in the arena, nor of 
the bright mantles hanging in heaps over the 
top of the barrier, nor of the chulos, or run- 
ners, at the other side, ready at a breath to 
bound over and catch those mantles and be- 
come butterflies. The vast living circle above 
had caught the creature’s first glance, and he 
made the whole round of the arena in a light, 
elastic trot, gazing with lifted head and wide 
eyes at the strange spectacle. What might 


Lolita. 


37 


be the meaning of this gigantic ring-serpent 
with its tail in its mouth and its every scale 
a human face, scintillating, too, with a quiver- 
ing motion, and vocal with thousands of vivas ? 

For the frank, bold action of the creature 
pleased the crowd. A bull which had the 
strength to carry his own ponderous weight 
so lightly would be a good fighter. He was 
black, well made, and glossy, and his front 
was like a tower. 

Reaching the place from whence he had 
started, his glance fell on the arena. His 
pace had slackened ; he accelerated it a little 
at sight of the picadores, swerved aside and 
lowered his head on reaching the first, flew 
onward, with scarcely a pause, to the second, 
another swerve and dip, with a swift, cunning 
horizontal movement of the head, and two 
horses lay disemboweled. 

Attendants flew over the barrier to pull 
the riders up, and the chulos came to the 
rescue with their mantles. For the bull had 
treated the spears of the picadores as though 
they were not, and seemed to know nothing 
of the wounds in his neck, from which a few 
drops of blood were trickling down. 

The third horseman fared better than the 
first two ; for the chulos, skimming about as 


38 


Autumn Leaves, 


light as swallows, glittering in their silver- 
wrought costumes of pink, blue, or green, 
drew off and broke the first charge, and con- 
fused the second, which was made too high, 
so that the bull was held at bay by the spear 
of the rider firmly planted in his neck. He 
drew back, and made an angry rush at the 
fourth picador, with a mind to charge low 
enough now and put an end to this trivial 
business of a few horsemen presuming to 
enter the space where he ran at large. He 
charged too low this time, fretted and blinded 
by the waving mantles, and went quite under 
the horse, and stuck there, horse and rider 
on his back. There was a momentary pause 
and suspense ; then the bull pushed forward, 
with the horse’s fore-legs slipping along his 
spine, and came out on the other side, feeling 
somewhat foolish, one may imagine, after his 
fiasco, astonished, too, and quieted for a 
time. The horse’s fore-feet dropped to the 
sand, and the rider kept his saddle well. 

Bravo, picador ! The audience applauded. 

The bull walked off to the opposite barrier, 
faced about, and began to study the situa- 
tion. His carriage had been haughty and 
disdainful, like that of a creature which had 
always had his own will. He had expected, 


Lolita, 


39 


apparently, to brush these men and horses 
away like flies. Now he had the surprised 
and half-incredulous air of one who begins to 
think that there is something serious in what 
is befalling him. 

On their side the toreros and the public 
had learned the bull’s character. He was 
bloodthirsty, buoyant, bold, and daring, with 
a suspicion of cunning intelligence in reserve. 

He stood a moment gazing steadily, as if 
measuring the distance between himself and 
the nearest rider, then rushed forward, only 
to be lost in a cloud of mantles and turned 
aside by a lance which he did not see. The 
end of his course left him alone in the middle 
of the arena. He faced about, looked right 
and left, and waited to digest what had hap- 
pened, and plan a new attack. The chulos 
waved their colors in vain. He shook his 
head at them as they passed before him, but 
did not stir. They teased and tantalized 
him, waving their mantles in his very face ; 
but he would not stir ; till at length, swift as 
an arrow, he charged ; and this time it was 
viva toro ! 

The horse was gored and overset, his rider 
falling against the barrier, and gored again 
and emptied, while the picador was pulled 


40 


Autum7i Leaves. 


out of harm’s way. Then the bull, proud 
and elate, trotted lightly around the whole 
arena, giving a swift glance and thrust at the 
other two horses lying motionless on the 
sand, to make sure that they were dead. 
Turning then, unexpectedly, he rushed at 
the fourth picador, and killed his horse in an 
instant. 

All the amphitheater was astir. Fans 
waved, and hats, and handkerchiefs, and 
parasols from the sunny side, and there was 
a clamor of voices like a high wind in the 
tree-tops. 

Lolita met the eyes of Del Aguilar, and 
almost answered his smile, it was so full of 
life, as he turned from the excitement of the 
arena. As she quickly looked away, the 
thought occurred to her that his face was 
splendidly brilliant when it was animated. 
How beautiful it would be if lighted with 
joyous love ! 

At the other side, half hidden from her by 
her aunt’s ample figure and waving fan, L^on 
Lesage was examining the audience through 
a glass. She drew herself hastily out of his 
sight. 

A trumpet sounded, and the bandilleros 
entered. There were four, and they carried 


Lolita, 


41 


in each hand a barbed dart of an arm’s 
length, with gay little streamers at the end. 
These barbs they must plant at either side 
of the bull’s neck, running up before him, 
just evading his charge, and striking the 
instant he is about to pass. 

The creature exhausted himself with these 
futile charges, rushing hither and thither in 
the vain effort to catch and toss those spark- 
ling, swift runners, who seemed to have wings 
on their feet, and were as difficult to catch 
as a flower of thistledown on the summer air. 
He rushed madly about, now after one, now 
after the other. As one fled from his right 
eye, another danced up to his left, and ever 
and anon a barb flew stinging into his 
wounded neck. These darts stood out at 
either side, flapping up and down and about 
as he ran. The streamers were visible to 
him all the time. He stopped now and then, 
looked back at the tormenting things, and 
shook himself, and struck at them with his 
head in a vain effort to get rid of them. 

The darts were all planted at length, four 
at either side, and the bull stood panting, his 
tongue lolling out of his mouth and dropping 
blood. 

It was a cruel sight ; yet the cruelty was 


42 


Autumn Leaves. 


frank. Worse and more cruel deeds are done 
every day by men and women who would 
denounce the bull-fight, safe in that their 
cruelty is hidden. Women there are, and 
many, who between their fine sentiments and 
pious talk, their kisses and caresses, plant 
barbs more stinging and in tenderer places ; 
and there are men claiming respect who use 
their power with a far more dastardly intent 
on creatures weaker than themselves. Fair 
will be the day when there shall be on earth 
nothing more cruel than a strong, free beast 
set up to fight for his life, though hopelessly, 
with ten thousand men and women to know 
how and why he dies ! Better far the being 
wounded to death in the arena, open to the 
day before men’s eyes, than the long stinging 
of poisonous hate that murders slowly in the 
dark ! 

Yet it was a pity to see. 

The Espada entered, saluting and saluted. 
He was of medium size, had a handsome pale- 
olive face, and an air of quiet dignity. His 
dress was of clear blue and silver, and the 
black slippers and long white hose displayed 
an elegant foot and leg. He held a drawn 
sword in his right hand, and in his left a 
square of scarlet cloth stretched over a rod. 


Lolita. 


43 


The bull had placed himself at the barrier 
and facing the entrance across the arena. 
He knew now from what quarter to expect 
his enemies. He watched this gallant new- 
comer as he walked quietly towards him ; he 
saw the chulos bound lightly over the barrier 
with their colored silk mantles in hand, and 
all draw nearer in a wide, irregular line, seem- 
ing not to look at him. 

And still he did not stir. His pride and 
confidence in his own strength were broken. 
It was no longer the green pastures of Utrera, 
with its gardens and its olives round about, 
where a single charge of his could put in- 
truders to flight. Ah, no ! they were not 
olive-branches, all those stirring things on 
the wide-circling benches, and at last he had 
found men who dared to face him. But he 
stood as firm as a rock, with his head lifted, 
in spite of pain and weariness. 

The Espada tried his temper with the 
scarlet cloth advanced and the sword pointed 
over it, provoking one short charge after an- 
other, which was deviated and drawn away 
by the swift chulos and ended in nothing. 

Presently the bull refused to be so drawn 
aside, and replied to the mantles that fluttered 
before his face from right and left only by an 


44 


Autumn Leaves, 


impatient and contemptuous shake of the 
head. All his attention was concentrated 
upon the figure with the scarlet cloth and 
drawn sword. He sought it among the baf- 
fling mantles, rushed, and rushed again, but 
paused when it disappeared. Then, as he 
waited, the chulos retired a little, half hidden 
beside him, and the Espada was left alone in 
the open space, cautiously advancing, with 
the red cloth lowered and the sword above it. 
The bull stood motionless, as if passively 
awaiting inevitable death ; but when the 
ingano was held at only arm’s length from 
his face, and the sword was slowly raised for 
the swift, fatal stroke, a galvanic life caught 
his great frame, and he rushed forward, and 
lost himself again in a cloud of colors waved 
hither and thither, while the Espada slipped 
aside, almost grazed by the blood-stained 
horns, and the barbs shaking at either side 
the bleeding neck. 

There was something awful in the fact that 
this tormented being could not speak, and 
something imposing in it, too. What hero 
ever sustained a half hour’s ceaseless combat, 
attack, defense, and at last death, without 
ever uttering a sound ? In all that struggle 
of constantly-baffled effort, which had no 


Lolita. 


45 


result save increased exhaustion and despair, 
the silence of the creature seemed to call 
aloud for a voice to utter the imprecations 
burning in his eyes. The humane heart 
scarcely could resist its impulse to rush in 
and fill that void with its indignant pity. 

The charges grew shorter ; the bull learned 
to charge with a slight sideway swerve, meant 
to anticipate his foe’s mode of escape, and 
learned to make a feint and a double charge, 
making almost a circle. Perhaps he hoped 
that the lifted sword might not mean death, 
it had so many times been lifted. He watched 
the tiptoe feet approaching, and he calculated 
his defense. With equal odds he would have 
learned defense and attack as quickly as the 
matador. But they were five to one, and 
they could blind him. But for this blinding, 
the chances would have been for him, even 
one to five as he was. 

At last he charged no more, but made only 
a slight forward start when the sword hung 
glittering before his eyes. The chulos retired 
a little. The Espada, advancing, watched 
keenly the creature’s dulling eyes for the 
spark which should precede a movement, and 
skipped aside when it rose. A slight move- 
ment would have sufficed to pick him up on 


46 


Autumn Leaves. 


one of those horns as you pick up an oyster 
on a fork. Each time he came nearer, and 
made a longer pause ; and at last there was 
a light bound and a flash, and the vast crowd 
burst into uproarious shouting as the sword, 
passing over the bull’s forehead, was buried 
to its hilt in his neck. It was a good stroke. 

The creature stood one instant motionless, 
then dropped like a stone. 

The band began to play, and hats were 
tossed into the arena by their enthusiastic 
wearers, and restored to them with courteous 
gravity by the Espada. This was an honor, 
to see closely, face to face, the man who had 
given that fine stroke, and have a momentary 
personal association with him, though only 
through the medium of a probably soiled hat. 

The Espada retired ; the tiro, two beauti- 
ful mules harnessed together and decked 
with flags, came in swiftly, and, by means of 
chain and hook, dragged out the four dead 
horses and the bull, whose fate had been as- 
sured by the plunging of a dagger in his 
brain as he lay motionless upon his side. 
Fresh sand was strewn on the blood-stained 
arena, four new picadores entered and took 
their places at the barrier, and — da capo. 

There were six bulls for that afternoon. 


Lolita. 


47 


“ Such a brave tore ! ” sighed Lolita, as 
the creature fell. “ Where has his life gone, 
do you think. Aunt Lola? It is not anni- 
hilated. It exists somewhere yet.” 

“ Perhaps your favorite constellation may 
be the happy celestial pasture of all brave 
toros,” her aunt said, smiling, “ and Orion 
the celestial Matador.” 

Do you know,” she added, in a whisper, 
“ L^on Lesage is over there at my right, 
with another Frenchman. Just behind them 
is a girl whom Leon brought from Paris. 
They are stopping at the hotel beside our 
house.” 

“ Indeed ! ” Lolita said, with what indiffer- 
ence she might at this sudden revelation of 
her aunt’s intelligence. 

'‘He was at the Miserere Thursday even- 
ing,” the senora went on, calmly, " and he 
stared at you as you came out.” 

“ He did not know me,” Lolita said, in a 
quiet tone. 

The senora laughed a little behind her fan. 

A mincing voice behind them began to 
comment in English, the best of New-Eng- 
land English, which some say is pure high 
Oxford, on the brutal cruelty of the spectacle 
they were witnessing. 


48 


Autumii Leaves. 


“ Oh, wait till you have put down your 
fox-hunt,” retorted a laughing voice in the 
same language. “ At least it requires some 
courage to face a bull. What do you sup- 
pose the poor little devil of a fox is thinking 
of during the run ? I should be ashamed to 
scare a helpless creature so. It’s worse than 
beating a woman ; for she can talk, at least.” 

“ Besides,” said a woman’s voice, these 
men are so graceful and agile, and they wear 
such heavenly costumes. They make quite 
another figure from your hunters hopping 
up and down in the saddle and all of a per- 
spiration. Of course I put my fan before my 
face now and then at a bull-fight. All the 
ladies do.” She lowered her voice. “ That 
lady in black and the young lady in the 
white mantilla did. Isn’t she pretty? I 
must have a white mantilla, — a real one, in 
three pieces, scarf, flounce, and veil. This 
thing is only a shawl. Jane bought a lovely 
old black one in Granada : somebody brought 
it to the Irving to sell. It has the old-style 
palm-leaf border, all heavy work. She gave 
five hundred pesetas for it.” 

“ What have you to say about the horses ? ” 
asked the critic, when the end of this trivial 
feminine discourse allowed him to speak. 


Lolita. 


49 


“ The poor nags suffer no fear,” the other 
declared. “ They die quickly, and don’t 
know what hurts them. We can take up the 
cudgel for them when it shall have become 
the custom for all nations to turn their worn- 
out horses out to pasture and cherish them 
tenderly till they die of old age.” 

The spectacle came to an end in the rosy 
sunset, and the crowd poured out through 
the many doors. As Lolita and her aunt 
issued into the plaza, they found L^on Le- 
sage waiting beside their path. 

“ Perhaps the Senora de Lebrana does not 
remember me,” he said, smiling, bending 
gracefully, hat in hand, with a reverent in- 
terrogative glance. 

“ Oh, perfectly, monsieur,” she answered, 
cordially enough. “ How is your mother ? ” 
L^on delivered his mother’s compliments. 
I have been searching vainly for you 
here,” he added. ” I called upon you in 
Cordova, and was told that you were in 
Seville, but could not procure your address. 
Is the Senorita Dolores well ? ” 

He had looked at and addressed the elder 
lady alone, but Lolita answered for herself : 
‘‘ I am quite well, thank you, monsieur.” 

As if he had only been waiting for per- 
4 


Autumn Leaves. 


mission, he turned towards her ; but the faint 
flash of red across his cheek showed that he 
had not been sure. 

“You find Lolita changed,” remarked the 
senora, marking the breathless gaze he fixed 
upon the beautiful downcast face. 

“ As a bud is changed when it becomes a 
rose,” he answered, dropping his eyes and 
bowing profoundly. 

Lolita gave her aunt’s arm an impatient 
pressure. 

“ Come to see me, if you have the time,” 
the senora said ; and, giving him their ad- 
dress, she took a courteous leave. 

A liar ! Lolita’s lip curled. He had 
never asked for them in Cordova. And then 
not to say that he had not recognized her ! 
Did he think it better she should believe that 
pantomime of love in the cathedral meant for 
her than that it was the light treatment of a 
stranger ? Then, what was the matter with 
his beauty, which had seemed to her so ex- 
quisite three years before ? Why did it of- 
fend her taste, this young face that lacked 
both health and freshness ? The lofty ex- 
pression, too, which she had once fancied 
it wore, the godlike calm, — where were they ? 
Was the change in her, or in him ? 


Lolita. 


SI 

Lolita felt that annoyance and humiliation, 
not without a bitter amusement, which fol- 
lows the discovery that we have been worship- 
ing the commonplace or the unworthy. If 
he had come without the stigma of a lie, or 
any meanness, she would still have been dis- 
appointed ; but, as he was, the lingering 
vapory illusion that she had still called love 
melted away to nothingness. That he ad- 
mired her was not enough to win her pardon. 
She was jealous of her own beauty, and shrank 
with a proud instinctive repulsion from being 
carelessly, or even passionately, sought as a 
mere beautiful girl. There was a certain 
romantic story over which she had often lin- 
gered with delight. It told how a veiled 
woman, by the nobleness of her character and 
conduct, won the love of a man who believed 
that veil to cover some facial deformity, till, 
his true devotion surely hers, she threw the 
veil aside and dazzled him with the crowning 
gift of her perfect loveliness. 

Something like that Lolita would have 
liked to do. 

Dinner was scarcely over that evening when 
two visitors were announced almost at the 
same instant. 

‘‘ I asked them both,'’ the sefiora whis- 


52 


Autumn Leaves. 


pered, in answer to Lolita’s faint exclamation. 
In fact, having witnessed a material combat 
in the afternoon, the lady proposed to end 
the day with a tournament where finesse and 
the affections only should enter the lists. 

“ Let us see which will carry off the prize,” 
she thought, and seated herself complacently 
on a sofa, with the two young men before 
her. 

If either had hoped to talk with Lolita, he 
was disappointed. Seated almost behind her 
aunt, the girl busied herself with some net- 
ting, which displayed her pretty hands in the 
prettiest positions. She had put on a white 
dress for the house, and had a dark red rose 
in her hair. 

The Frenchman sparkled, was versatile, 
voluble, and sometimes witty ; the Spaniard 
was grave, high-toned, and elaborately cour- 
teous. The Frenchman mocked where he 
could not argue, and tossed each subject that 
came up as lightly as a ball ; the Spaniard 
showed respect for those questions which the 
other dismissed with an epigram, and evi- 
dently did not look on life as a laughing-mat- 
ter. There was at times a tremor in Gon- 
zalo’s tones as his eyes glanced at the bent 
head with a rose amid its dark locks, as 


Lolita. 


S3 


though his voice had got entangled in his 
heart-strings. He found the girl profoundly 
dear and most divinely fair ; L^on, all on fire, 
declared her mentally to be adorable, ravish- 
ing, an angel. 

Presently the tones of one began to betray 
impatience, and of the other, pain. 

L^on spoke of their summer at the chateau, 
recalled a score of trifling incidents, and in- 
timated that he had cherished that time 
among his dearest recollections, and that his 
visit to Spain was a consequence of it. He 
even ventured to remind Lolita of his prom- 
ise to come. 

She did not answer, but glanced up at him 
with a half-assenting nod. Then her eyes 
slid past him to the other, and encountered 
eyes so full of questioning misery that her 
own sank quickly to hide the tears that rose 
to them. But the tears were quickly dried as 
she continued listening. Those tender in- 
tonations, those hesitations which hinted that 
they had not parted as strangers, — how dared 
he! Her heart beat with a fierce scorn and 
anger at his assumptions. 

The Spaniard rose to go. His face was 
very pale, but he had not lost his self-posses- 
sion. Only when he bowed before Lolita, 


54 


Autumn Leaves, 


one passionate, reproachful look shot from 
his eyes and seemed to bid her farewell 
forever. 

Lolita did not resume her seat when the 
others did. Glancing back from the door, 
the parting lover saw her go out into the 
balcony, and, stung with a lightning pain, 
half hope, half jealousy, he rushed down to 
the street, and, turning, looked up. She 
leaned there alone, and gazed steadily down 
at him, the stars alone above her head. After 
a moment, he saw her lift her hand and 
loosen the rose from her hair. 

Oh, could it be? He went forward, hold- 
ing up his arms, and her whispered name 
clove through the dewy air. Life hung in 
the balance, the very life of life, as he watched 
to see if the hand would be raised again. 
Every nerve in him quivered. Was there an 
earthquake that he shook so, that the very 
balcony seemed swinging to and fro against 
the sky ? 

The hand was raised, and with a tremu- 
lous sigh, the lover’s heart leaped and seemed 
to meet that sweet rose in mid-air as it came 
rustling down. 

“ Lolita,” her aunt called, Monsieur Le- 
sage is going away.” 


Lolita. 


55 


Monsieur Lesage was, in fact, going away 
with a deeper feeling of mortification than he 
could well conceal. Nor was his displeas- 
ure lessened by the brilliant face Lolita 
showed as she came smiling into the room. 
And when, as he was about to close the door 
behind him, he encountered the Spaniard, 
who had returned, and who entered as he 
left the room, he did not restrain the mut- 
tered imprecation that rose to his lips. 

Del Aguilar shut the door behind him, and 
advanced into the room, his face flushed to 
the hair, his eyes sparkling, his white teeth 
gleaming as he panted with excitement and 
the quick run upstairs. He held the rose 
up, and looked at Lolita, though he spoke 
to her aunt. 

“ Bid her tell me if it was my bride who 
dropped the rose, — my bride ! Bid her tell 
me quickly, or my heart will cease to beat.” 

“ Speak, Lolita ! ” cried her aunt. 

She did not speak, but, folding her hands 
and dropping her eyes, sank in a slow, deep 
courtesy before her future lord. 


Autum?i Leaves, 


S6 


A LEGEND OF ST. JAMES. 


Projice te in eum^ non se sabtrahet ut cadas. — St. Augus- 
tine. 

There’s a legend, old and quaint, 

Of a painter and a saint. 

Told at Innsbruck in the Tyrol, where the 
swift river flies. 

Where the berg with snowy crown 
Is background for the town, 

And, circling all, the green-domed hills and 
castled Alps arise. 

In a church, at set of sun, 

(Thus doth the story run). 

Some children watched the cupola where, 
propped on dizzy frames, 

Daniel Asam, pale and grand. 

With a heaven-directed hand. 

Stood painting a colossal figure of the great 
St. James. 

And one there, whispering, praised 
The painter as they gazed. 

Telling how he had pondered o’er each text 
of Holy Word 
That helps the story on 


A Legend of St. Janies. 


57 


Of the brother of St. John, 

Of the first apostle who was martyred for the 
martyred Lord. 

Every dawn of day, ’twas said, 

He ate the Holy Bread, 

And every night the knotted rope wounded 
his shoulders bare ; 

Silent he came and went, 

As one whom God has sent 
On a high and solemn mission that brooks 
no speech but prayer. 

For 'twas meet that he should pray. 
Who fitly would portray 
The form that walked with Christ, and 
feasted at the mystic board ; 

And much he needed grace 
Who would picture forth the face 
That had shone back in the vision of the 
transfigured Lord ! 

Thus whispered they below ; 

While above, within the glow 
Of an isolating sunshine, the unconscious 
artist stood ; 

And where the light did fall 
Full clearly on the wall. 


58 Autumn Leaves. 

Leaned the Apostle, half-revealed in dawning 
saintlihood. 

Daniel Asam paused in doubt, 

As he traced the nimbus out. 

Would the face show dimmer should he add 
one crowning raylet more? 

With a single pointed spire 
Tip the auroral fire 

Whose curved and clustered radiance that 
awful forehead wore ? 

Hesitating, back he drew 
For a more commanding view. 

(The children trembled where they stood, 
and whitened and grew faint !) 

And still he backward stept. 

And still, forgetful, kept 

His studious eyes fixed earnestly upon the 
bending saint. 

One plank remained alone. 

And then the cruel stone 

That paved the chancel and the nave two 
hundred feet below. 

The man, enwrapped in God, 

Still slowly backward trod, 


A Legend of St. Janies. 59 

And stepped beyond the platform’s dizzy 
edge, and fell ! — when, lo ! 

Swift as a startled thought, 

The saint his hands had wrought 
Lived, and flashed downward from the dome 
with outstretched, saving arm ! 

One dazzling instant — one — 

The heavenly meteor shone — 

And Daniel Asam knelt before the altar, 
free from harm. 

Like mist about him hung. 

The ling’ring glory clung. 

He felt the pictured holy ones grow quiet in 
their frames. 

He knew the light that shone 
Through eyes of carven stone, 

And, fading up within the dome, his saviour, 
great St. James ! 

Thus shall thy rescue be. 

My soul said unto me. 

If thou but cast thyself on God and trust to 
Him thine all. 

For he who with his might. 

Labors with God aright. 

Hath saintly guards about him ever, and he 
cannot fall ! 


6o 


Autumn Leaves, 


TWO LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 

On the banks of the Tiber, not far from 
Rome, there is a mineral spring called Acqua 
Cetosa ; and a little way beyond is, or was, a 
donkey-shed, in the loft of which, on a sack 
of corn-husks, slept the twin brothers, Tito 
and Cesare. They were allowed to sleep 
there by the man who owned the place, be- 
cause he had been a comrade of their father, 
and because the boys were now homeless 
orphans, both father and mother dead. 

During the first few months of their 
orphanhood they had earned their living by 
begging, which is not so easy a life as many 
people imagine. It may not tire the muscles, 
but it makes the heart weary. When a 
scornful refusal is given, the heart becomes 
bitter as well as weaiy, and, instead of a sad 
humility, may be filled with a revengeful 
hate. 

Tito and Cesare were scarcely old enough 
to know what such hate is; but they were 
sometimes almost desperate. It was always 
foreigners, and particularly Americans, who 
spoke brutally to them, though some Ameri- 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 6i 

cans were kind and wonderfully generous. 
Italians are always civil to the poor, even 
in refusing charity. ^'Figlio mio, I have no 
change to-day,” they will say. In Spain 
also, when they cannot give, they refuse with 
courtesy and kindness, “ Excuse me to-day, 
brother.” 

Such people have been taught charity and 
good manners. To them the poor are 
“ God’s poor.” 

After a time the twins found employment. 
They got permission to sell matches in the 
streets of Rome ; and in the spring they sold 
violets. The matches were those dear little 
waxen ones put up in brightly pictured 
boxes ; and for some mysterious reason they 
do not all stick together in a lump there as 
they do here. Perhaps it is because in those 
European countries they keep so many bees 
that they can afford to make their wax 
matches out of wax. 

While selling these the boys slept in 
Rome, in an old stage-coach in an old stable 
in a street so old that its pavements must 
have been pressed by the sandals of Julius 
Caesar. There is some proof, also, that it is 
the same street where that famous bore 
button-holed Horatius Flaccus, and had his 


62 


Autumn Leaves, 


portrait sketched by the poet for our delec- 
tation. 

The hostler in this stable was another old 
comrade of the boys’ father. 

When they sold violets they slept in the 
donkey-shed up the Tiber. There they 
would rise as soon as day, eat a piece of 
bread, and run away to certain grassy banks 
and nooks they knew, where, from February 
to May, the ground was every morning 
all a blue mist with fragrant, long-stemmed 
violets. 

One June day, the violet season being 
passed and the match business dull, as they 
wandered disconsolately about the streets 
and squares of Rome, a foreign artist whom 
they knew met them and gave them a fine 
commission. He wanted for the next day 
as many as they could bring him of a certain 
fragrant yellow flower that grows all about 
the Tiber. A princess of royal blood, pass- 
ing through Rome on her way to Naples, 
was to visit his studio, and he was adorning 
it for her reception. 

Come and see how I want to use the 
flowers,” he said, pleasantly ; and the twins 
followed him, full of curiosity. They had 
seen the studios of painters, had even served 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 63 

as models once ; but they knew nothing of 
sculptor s work ; and this man was a sculptor. 

They entered from the street through wide 
double doors, like stable-doors, a very large 
room on the ground floor. Here two men 
in white linen blouses and paper caps were 
at work with chisel and mallet on two tall 
blocks of milk-white Carrara marble. Other 
blocks, large and small, lay, or stood, about. 

One of the men touched lightly, taking off 
only a white dust from an arm and hand of 
the half-shaped' figure he worked upon. 

There’s a man inside the stone trying to 
get out,” Cesare whispered to his brother. 
“ Oh ! I wish I could make a hand like 
that ! ” 

The other workman chiseled off large 
pieces, his block being almost whole. 

It sounds like music,” Tito said to Cesare. 

It does ring,” the sculptor said, overhear- 
ing him. “ I remember,” he added, address- 
ing his workmen, Giovanni Dupr^ saying 
that when he gave the last touches to one of 
his monuments before it was unveiled, the 
marble rang back like a bell when he struck 
it. Giovanni was a realist. His Saint Fran- 
cis, in Assisi, has got a little patch chiseled 
into his robe. Come, boys ! ” 


64 


Autumn Leaves. 


As they went, Tito looked back and sang 
softly, in a sweet, clear voice, the very note 
the marble gave out. 

“What a true voice you’ve got!” the 
sculptor exclaimed, stopping to look at the 
boy. “A bird’s voice, too. You must sing 
for me some time.” 

Tito hung his head, and said nothing. He 
had forgotten that he was not in some grove 
up the Tiber mimicking a bird. His pro- 
fessor of music was a nightingale, though he 
sometimes took a lesson from a passero soli- 
tarioy a rarer bird than the nightingale. 

They went up a few steps and past a gray 
curtain over a wide door into the artist’s own 
workroom, where he stopped a moment to 
dismiss a model who was waiting for him, 
and to wet the cloths on a clay figure that 
stood in the full light of a single broad 
window there. 

“ Oh ! ” said Cesare, “ if I could only make 
them ! ” 

From this room a stair led up to a lofty 
hall with an arched ceiling supported by 
pillars, where, scattered about, singly, or in 
groups, was a company of snow-white figures. 
If Medusa had come suddenly upon an 
assembly of beautiful men, women and chil- 


Two Little Roman Beggars, 65 

dren, and changed them all into stone with 
the first glance, they could not have looked 
at once more life-like and more death-like. 
The smile, the frown, the gesture, the posi- 
tion — all were petrified on the instant. There 
were roguish cupids, noble forms draped to 
their feet, praying forms, wrestlers, — religion, 
intellect, strength and gracefulness, all shaped 
in purest marble. Mingled with these and 
setting them off, were colored draperies, 
plants, laurel-boughs, some high-backed chairs 
of carven oak, and a few pictures. 

“ Now, see what I want,” the sculptor said, 
and preceded the boys to a niche where a 
slender female shape stood on a pedestal. 
She had a beautiful smiling face ; but there 
was something cruel and deceitful in her 
smile. 

The name carved on her pedestal was 
CICUTA. 

Now, the yellow flowering branches that 
the sculptor wanted were of a shrub called 
cicutUy or hemlock, said to be the same plant 
with which Socrates was poisoned. 

“ I want to line the niche and half cover 
the pedestal with those flowers,” the sculptor 
said. “ Can you bring me enough for that ? ” 
Oh, yes ! ” Tito said. 

5 


66 


Autumn Leaves, 


Cesare could not hear the question. His 
eyes were flashing from object to object of 
the beautiful place, and there was a ringing 
in his ears, “ Oh ! if I could make them ! if I 
could make them!” he thought; and his 
eyes filled with tears. 

“ Perhaps,” the artist said, “ I may let you 
stay and see the princess. Who knows but 
she would give you something. People always 
take notice of twins. You would look well 
cheek to cheek beside the pedestal, and half 
covered up with flowers. Now you may 
go.” 

Tito went directly, Cesare as though his 
feet stuck to the floor. 

“ If the princess should ask me to sing,” 
said Tito, when they were outside, “ I will 
first do the nightingale song — that one that 
sings out in the black grove — and then I will 
sing ‘ Vedi che luna biancay and then do the 
passer 0 solitario'' 

“ Oh 1 if I could make them I If I could 
make them ! ” murmured his brother. 

That night they slept in the donkey-shed, 
and the next morning they were out at sun- 
rise searching for and cutting long flexible 
branches of the sweet-smelling flowers of the 
cicuta. Their plan was to tie these branches 


Two Little Roi 7 ian Beggars, 67 

about them in a way they knew, to their legs, 
arms, neck and waist, till they should be all 
covered but their feet, and look like two 
great gold-colored bouquets. Sometimes you 
may see in Italy a child dressed in this way, 
walking off like a plant that has left its roots 
for a ramble ; or you may see a woman com- 
ing up into a provincial town from her work 
in the fields with her whole person covered 
with long grass and poppies, only a pair of 
prettily-stepping bare feet visible. 

The boys piled a great heap of flowers on 
a piece of smooth turf that crumbled down 
to the river on its outer edge. The Tiber is 
a very dangerous river, and this was a very 
dangerous spot, for the current makes here a 
deep curve into the bank, whirling swiftly 
out again lower down. But the piece of 
clean turf was just what the boys wanted to 
lay their flowers on and make their toilet on. 
They were getting the strings out of their 
pockets, thinking that they had flowers 
enough, when Cesare espied at a little dis- 
tance some branches of cicuta so richly 
blooming as to seem carven in pure gold. 
He bade Tito go and get them. 

“ Go, yourself! ” said Tito. He often com- 
plained that Cesare ordered him about too 


68 


Autumn Leaves, 


much. They had some words about it now ; 
but it ended in Tito going for the cicuta. 

When at a little distance he turned and 
called back : “ I don’t have to cover my 
ears ! ” then ran. 

Cesare looked at him angrily, but did not 
move, nor speak, though the taunt was a 
cruel one ; for half of one of his ears had 
been bitten off by a dog years before, and he 
was at some pains to conceal the mutilation 
with his curly hair. 

Tito came back presently with his arms 
full of the finest blossoms they had found 
that morning, and seeing how angry his 
brother looked, stood holding them before 
him as a shield. 

“ Why don’t you throw them down ? ” 
asked Cesare roughly. 

“You’re not my master ! ” Tito replied 
in the same tone. 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth 
when Cesare sprang upon him. Tito was 
between him and the river ; and at that sud- 
den onset he staggered backward, stumbled 
over the crumbling bank, and fell, he and his 
load of blossoms, with a splash, into the 
Tiber. 

There was a momentary pause ; then 


Two Little Roman Beggars, 69 

the swift current dragged him away, leaving 
Cesare almost paralyzed with horror. He had 
forgotten in his anger that the river was there. 

The flowers spread themselves out on the 
water surrounding a white little face and dis- 
ordered chestnut-colored hair and two arms 
stretched wildly upward. 

Oh ! put your arms down ! Try to 
swim ! his brother cried. “ Swim across ! 
Try hard ! O Tito ! Tito ! ” 

A vine-covered branch that hung out over 
the water intercepted his gaze for a moment ; 
then the golden mat of flowers came into 
sight again lower down. But the face and 
arms had disappeared. 

Cesare’s eyes, still staring, saw all the 
world grow dark, his heart seemed to turn 
over heavily and sink downward, and some- 
thing struck him on the head. It was the 
ground as he fell. Then he lost consciousness. 

Opening his eyes again, he first wondered 
where he was and how he came there. Then 
he thought : “ Where is Tito ? ” And then, 
remembering all, he started up and began to 
search along the river-bank, staggering as he 
went, and calling his brother desperately. 
Tito must have escaped ! He would not 
believe otherwise. 


70 


Autumn Leaves, 


It was a day of full sunshine. The 
branches of the trees waved softly now and 
then, and in a thick grove a nightingale 
sang, though it was almost nine o’clock. 
All nature seemed to be at peace with a lovely 
quiet joy and brightness, and quite uncon- 
scious of the wretched child, who, with wild 
eyes and tear-stained face, went running 
from place to place, scarcely knowing what 
he was about, moaning with every breath : 
“ Tito ! O Tito ! ” 

There was no answer. He ran half a mile 
down the river-bank, then came back to the 
place he had started from, and sat down by 
his heap of cicuta. Hope died out of his 
heart. It was vain, he saw, to search for 
one who had fallen into that strong writhing 
current, except to find a lifeless body far be- 
low. Nothing remained for him but to con- 
ceal what had happened, and try to keep out 
of jail. The day dragged itself away like a 
wounded creature. Cesare passed it in 
wandering through the woods, and staring 
up and down the road. If he saw any one 
coming, he hid himself. But he could not 
escape the birds which every moment looked 
at him with their sharp eyes, and said inter- 
rogatively : “ Tito ? Tito ? ” 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 71 

At twilight he started for the donkey-shed. 
As he climbed the ladder to the loft a sud- 
den hope woke in his heart so sharply that 
it hurt. What if he should find Tito there 
asleep ! 

No! The sack of corn-husks was all his 
to sleep on, if he could sleep. They would 
never quarrel any more about the old gray 
blanket that was their sole covering. Some- 
times they had disputed over it in sport, end- 
ing with a kiss. The twins always kissed 
each other good-night. 

Cesare, weeping drearily, kissed his broth- 
er’s end of the bolster, and put all of the 
blanket at Tito’s side of the bed, though he 
was himself shivering with a chill of fear and 
grief. For hours he lay and suffered in si- 
lence, till at length sleep overcame him. He 
was just losing consciousness, when some- 
thing cold and damp touched his forehead, 
as if a wet hand had been drawn across it. 

He started up in a fright. “ It’s Tito’s 
ghost ! ” he thought, and his heart thumped 
loudly against his side. 

All was dark and still. Only the trees 
rustled outside, and from far away came the 
dull murmur of the Tiber. Cesare sat there 
till daylight, staring into the dark, and listen- 


72 


Autumn Leaves. 


ing. Then he wrapped himself in the 
blanket, and, utterly exhausted, went to 
sleep. 

It was late when he got up and started for 
Rome. He begged a piece of bread by the 
way and pulled some wild salad-leaves to eat 
with it. He was half-starved. Reaching 
the city, he was careful to avoid the places 
where he might have been recognized. Go- 
ing from bridge to bridge, he clung to the 
railing, and stared down into the Tiber. He 
did not dare to ask a question ; but when- 
ever he saw several men talking together, he 
would pass slowly close to them, looking 
another way, and listen to hear if they were 
speaking of a little dead boy that had been 
taken out of the Tiber with a cicuta blossom 
clenched in his hand, and another tangled in 
his hair. 

When night came he went to sleep in the 
old stage-coach. Bernardo, the hostler, would 
ask him no questions. The twins had always 
come and gone as unquestioned as two cats. 

When the thoughts have dwelt long and 
constantly on some grief it becomes dull to 
them, as a stone loses its sharp edges when 
running water has washed it about for a 
long time. The stone remains smooth ; but 


73 


Two Little Roman Beggar'S, 

when the weary mind has rested a while, it 
wakes to find its grief as sharp as ever. 

Cesare, having thought of nothing but his 
brother for so long a time, had become so 
dull and weary that he had scarcely curled 
himself up on the back seat of the old dilu 
genza when he was sound asleep. 

Deep in the night he was wakened by 
something like a cold wet hand drawn across 
his forehead. Restarted up, screaming. All 
was dark and still. 

Presently the door of a little room be- 
side the stable opened, and the hostler 
called out roughly, asking what the matter 
was. 

“ I — I had a bad dream,” the boy stam- 
mered, comforted by the sound of a human 
voice. 

If you wake me again with your bad 
dreams, Fll put you into the street,” said 
Bernardo, and slammed his door to. 

Cesare sat up all the rest of the night on 
the back seat of the coach and stared through 
darkness at the front seat where his brother 
had always slept. When the day dawned he 
went out, begged something to eat, and got 
some matches to sell. The man he bought 
them of trusted him for a few boxes. 


74 


Autumn Leaves, 


But where is your brother ? ” the man 
asked. 

I don’t know,” said Cesare. “ He’s 
round somewhere.” 

Almost a week went by in this way. 
Every day the boy went about the city sell- 
ing matches, and every night he spent in 
misery waiting for the visitor who never 
failed to come. 

At length, one night, instead of cowering 
in silence after that cold touch had started 
him from his first sleep, he sat up and spoke. 
“ I didn’t mean to do it, Tito,” he said. 
“ And I’m sorry ! Oh ! I’m sorry ! I never 
thought of the river being there. And, Tito, 
you didn’t know how ashamed I am of my 
ear. It spoils me. I’m like one of those old 
crumbly statues in a garden. Their ears are 
always broken. I miss you so, Tito ! If you 
were here, you might have all my money. 
I don’t care about it now that you are gone.” 

And he sobbed bitterly. 

Cesare did not know it, for he never looked 
into a mirror, but he was wasting away, con- 
sumed by a fever of grief, fear and sleepless- 
ness. He could scarcely swallow food ; and 
sometimes such a faintness came over him 
that he could not stand. 


75 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 

Otherwise, his affairs prospered ; and now 
that he cared so little for money he earned 
more than ever. People had begun to make 
collections of such pictured match-boxes as 
he sold, especially such as carried out a series 
illustrating some story ; and the very day 
after he spoke to his brother at night he 
filled two orders that gave him what was to 
him a large profit. A lady had employed 
him to get her a whole set of the boxes hav- 
ing little photographs of Dora’s illustrations 
of Dante’s Inferno ; and a gentleman who 
was making a humorous collection gave him 
a silver lira for a single box. The picture 
was of a man sitting on the floor with a wine 
flask on a bench beside him, and a tumbler 
half full of wine tipping over in his hand. 
He was saying: Aveva ragione Galileo: la 
terra gira. (Galileo was right : the earth 
goes round.) 

When night came, it seemed to him that 
he could not go back to the stage-coach. 
Perhaps, if he should go to some place where 
he and his brother had never slept, Tito’s 
hand would not find him out. 

After wandering about for a while, he 
came to the Roman Forum. The great 
dark mass of the Colosseum loomed before 


76 Autumn Leaves, 

him. He watched his chance when no one 
was near and slipped into its shadow. The 
moon shone in from the south, and showed 
him a piece of smooth turf under one of the 
arches. She seemed to say : Lie down 
there, little boy, and I will watch over you.” 

She seemed to do more. She shadowed 
out a great cross above the dark excavations 
in the central space, and called up all round 
the ghosts of vanished Stations of the Cross 
where he had seen them stand when he and 
Tito went one Good Friday with their mother 
to say the prayers. The boy recollected 
his neglected devotions in recollecting his 
mother’s teachings, and, kneeling there in 
the moonlight, he said an Our Father and a 
Hail Mary. Then, somewhat comforted, he 
laid down, put his cap under his head for a 
pillow, and was soon in a deep sweet sleep. 

He woke but once in the night, and that 
was because a large walnut in his pocket hurt 
him. As he turned from it, he heard a sound 
of breathing not far away. It was the soft, 
regular breathing of one who slept. 

Glad to have company, he slept again, and 
did not wake till dawn. The hand had not 
found him that night. He was glad of it ; 
and, yet — it was poor Tito’s hand ! And 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 77 

perhaps it meant him no harm. It seemed 
almost like pushing his brother away again. 

He sighed, shook the dust from his cap, 
put it on, and was about going away when 
he recollected the breathing he had heard, 
and looked about to see who his companion 
was. They might watch their chance to get 
out together. 

The sleeper was dimly visible under an 
inner arch, and Cesare made out the figure 
of a boy who lay with his face turned away, 
and one arm bent for a pillow under his 
head. 

Cesare went softly nearer, then stopped, 
his heart giving a leap. He half turned away, 
with an impulse of flight. But the air was 
all clear and bright about him, and the sky 
was blue and full of sunshine above the great 
stone ring of the Colosseum. He blessed 
himself, and went a step nearer. Y et another 
step, and he saw chestnut-colored ringlets, 
like his own, and a fair profile showing pale 
against the dark sleeve it rested on. Then, 
gasping for breath, he ran, he fell on his 
knees beside the sleeper. 

It was Tito ! He tremblingly touched the 
hair, and it was real hair. He looked at the 
clothes. They were the real clothes of a 


78 


Autumn Leaves. 


poor little boy, such as Tito had worn. He 
bent and felt a soft breath fan his face. He 
kissed the cheek softly, and whispered : 

Tito ! ” 

The sleeping boy stirred, and murmured 
drowsily : “ Yes, Ces ! ” 

Even in his sleep he knew that in all the 
world there was no one to kiss him but his 
brother. 

At that word Cesare wept aloud for joy ; 
and in a moment the twins were clasped in 
each other’s arms. 

“ Did Bernardo know ? ” Cesare asked after 
a while. 

He only knew that I didn’t want you to 
see me. I slept in the stage-box. I’m sorry 
I frightened you, Ces ! I cried when you 
spoke the other night. I would have an- 
swered, but I thought it would frighten you 
more. I told Bern to tell you yesterday that 
I was coming last night, and I waited hidden 
to see how you would take it. But you didn’t 
come to the stable. I went round searching 
for you. When I went to the stable again, 
the door was shut. Then I came here. I’m 
sorry I frightened you, Ces ! ” 

Cesare drew a handful of copper coins from 
his pocket. ‘‘You may have ’em all,” he 


79 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 

said. “ And now tell me how you got out 
of the river.” 

Tito gazed with delight at the money. 
He had never had so much all his own. 

“ You remember the branch that hung out 
over the river,” he said. “ I caught a vine 
that hung from it, and pulled myself in by 
that. I just barely got it. Then I ran for 
the shed, hung my clothes to dry in the sun, 
and went to bed. I slept almost all day. 
When my clothes were dry I got up, put 
them on, and hid. I was behind the bunch 
of corn-stalks. Tm sorry I frightened you, 
Ces ! ” 

Cesare took a large walnut from his pocket. 
It was the one that had waked him in the 
night. 

“ Take it ! ” he said. “ And don’t you 
want to swap knives with me, Tito ? Mine 
is the best. And we will go and get some 
breakfast. You shall have coffee with milk 
and sugar in it, and a white roll, and a two- 
soldi pat of butter with the wolf and twins 
printed on it. You shall have everything 
that you want, Tito.” 

Tito had cracked the walnut between his 
little teeth that were like polished alabaster, 
and put half the kernel in his brother’s mouth. 


8o 


Autumn Leaves. 


He sprang up at the offer of this magnificent 
breakfast, the like of which he had never 
eaten in all his life, and the two, watching 
their chance, crept out into the street. 

The bell of the church of San Clemente 
close by was ringing for an early Mass. The 
two boys went in, and kneeling side by side, 
on the ancient pavement, sent a glad Ave 
Maria upward, like two uniting wreaths of 
incense, from their happy hearts. Then one 
said : “ I’m sorry I pushed Tito ! ” and the 
other said : “I’m sorry I frightened Cesare ! ” 
Then they blessed themselves and went out. 

The sun was rising, and threw their long 
shadows before them as they went toward 
the Capitol. 

“ Ces,” said Tito, “ let’s catch our shad- 
ows.” 

They laughed, and started off hand-in-hand 
after the shadows that leaped before them 
up the steep way to the Campidoglio, their 
chase a swiftly passing figure of many a life- 
long pursuit those ancient walls had seen 
begin and end since first the morning light 
shone on their somber stones. 

At the entrance of the piazza, a loud voice 
arrested their course. 

“What! Castor and Pollux, just in time, 


8i 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 

even as at the battle of Lake Regillus, and 
careering like two young colts.” 

The boys stopped in silent embarrassment. 
It was the sculptor whom they had not once 
thought of since the fatal morning of their 
cicuta-gathering. 

“ Why did you break your promise to 
me? ” he asked with an air of severity. 

“ I fell into the Tiber,” said Tito. 

How fortunate ! ” the artist exclaimed. 

It saved me two lire. The princess couldn’t 
come, after all. But she is coming up from 
Naples to-day, and the visit will be made to- 
morrow. Can I trust you this time ? Or 
will you fall into the Tiber again ? ” 

“ Oh ! we will bring the flowers,” said 
Cesare fervently. You may be sure ! ” 

And they did bring them, and were half 
covered up in them beside the Cicuta pedestal 
the next afternoon when the sculptor went 
out to receive his royal visitor. 

She was not a very young lady, but she 
was a very graceful and gracious one ; and 
she had been all her life so accustomed to 
seeing the finest works of art and hearing ex- 
planations of them from the most competent 
critics that her praise was of value. 

What an ideal life it is,” she said, to 

6 


82 


Autumn Leaves. 


be always among such beautiful objects, and 
always producing them ! ” 

A younger lady and gentleman accom- 
panied her, walking quietly behind her as she 
went about with the artist, looking at every- 
thing. They were her companion, and a 
Roman nobleman, a cousin of the princess. 

They looked at the Cicuta last. The 
sculptor thought it would make the most 
effective climax to their sight-seeing. For, 
not only was the statue exquisite and its 
background of golden flowers an appropriate 
and poetical thought, but the twins added 
the last touch to the picture. 

“ Why ! What is that ? ” the princess ex- 
claimed, when she saw the two little dusky 
masks laid cheek to cheek against the Ci- 
cutas’s pedestal. 

The boys had been told to lie quite still, 
and keep their eyes closed ; but Tito, at sound 
of that musical voice, could not help smiling 
very faintly. 

“ It’s alive ! ” the lady cried, and, bending, 
touched his cheek with her finger-tip. It 
sank, and dimpled at the light pressure, and 
two rows of small white teeth were disclosed. 
Lastly, the eyelids trembled, and something 
began to shine between the dark lashes. 


Two Little Roman Beggars, 83 

A very pretty scene was then enacted. 
The twins were taken out of their flowery 
bed and made to talk and tell their story. 
The lady leaned back in an arm-chair and 
grew serious as she listened to it all. For it 
was all drawn out of them, their donkey-shed 
and diligenza, their violets and their matches, 
and even the fall into the Tiber and the find- 
ing in the Colosseum. Nor was the mode of 
telling the last part less touching than the 
story itself, for it was a sort of duetto where, 
one of the boys beginning to blame himself, 
the other took the word, and excused him, 
going on till interrupted in his turn. They 
ended with their arms around each other s 
shoulders. 

Asked to sing, Tito struck an attitude that 
made the princess smile ; but the smile soon 
lost its amusement, and became one of pleased 
surprise. 

He sang : 

“ Vedi che luna bianca ! 

Vedi che notte azzural 
Un* aura non sussura, 

Non tremola uno stel.” 

They all applauded at the end. 

“ Why, Enrico, that child ought to be a 
choir-singer,” the princess said to her cousin. 


84 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ So I was thinking,” he said. “ Leave it 
to me. There is always a place for a voice 
like that.” 

And what would you like to do ? ” the 
princess asked of Cesare. 

His eyes filled with tears, and he trembled. 
‘‘ I want to stay with Tito ! ” he almost sobbed. 

“ Don’t fear ! you shall not be separated,” 
she said soothingly. “ But what would you 
like to do while your brother is learning to 
sing, or is singing ? ” 

“ Listen to him,” said Cesare, still trem- 
bling. 

Dear child, no human being shall sepa- 
rate you from him ! ” the lady exclaimed. 

A home shall be found where you can live 
together. But, surely, you would not wish 
to be idle while he is working. Is there 
nothing that you would wish to learn ? ” 

His fears at rest, Cesare’s thoughts de- 
tached themselves from his brother. His 
bright glance swept across the forms of sculpt- 
ured beauty that surrounded them. He stood 
erect, drawing himself up. 

“ I want to be a sculptor,” he said briefly, 
and with a certain decision. 

There was a moment of silence. The vis- 
itors had not expected so ambitious a choice, 


Two Little Roman Beggars. 


8s 

and were somewhat embarrassed to know 
how they should respond to it. Then the 
artist said, 

“He has had that idea ever since he first 
came here. Who knows but he may have a 
gift that way ! If a home is provided for 
him, I will give him a lift and a fair trial. 
He isn’t a common-looking boy. I would 
like to have him about the studio.” 

“Would you like that, my child?” the 
princess asked smilingly. “You shall come 
here, be useful to this kind gentleman, see 
how he works, try to model with your own 
little hands, and have a fair chance to see if 
you can be a sculptor.” 

You have seen the sun, coming out after a 
shower, strike across some hanging tremulous 
drop of water on stone or leaf till it looked 
like a miniature sun itself. It might be said 
that the boy’s soul was like such a drop at 
that moment. He stood erect in a trance of 
rapture, his eyes a little uplifted, all glowing, 
as if they saw some wondrous vision in the 
air. 

He stood so for a moment ; then, becoming 
conscious of his surroundings, he smiled and 
blessed himself. 

The princess stretched out her hand and 


86 


Autumn Leaves. 


drew the boy to her side, and her eyes spar- 
kled as she turned to the sculptor. 

“ Put that into marble for me ! ” she ex- 
claimed. 


Summer Friends. 


87 


SUMMER FRIENDS. 

What love their lips declared when to Thy 
side 

Th’ adoring throng with loud hosannas 
pressed ! 

What glad obedience ! What glowing pride 
That they were Thine their flattered hearts 
confessed ! 

But when the fickle crowd, like a salt sea, 

Rolled with its bitter waves to stifle Thee, 
When treachery had broken down the wall 
Their blinded souls had thought could 
never fall ; 

When serpent tongues, and brutal insolence 

Confused their trivial minds, their earthly 
sense — 

How mute the lips so lately loud with love ! 
How slow the step that erst out-flew the 
dove ! 

They hid, they doubted — devils at thy side ! 

And stood far while Thou wast crucified ! 


88 


Autumn Leaves. 


PALINGENESIS. 

“ Are you an advocate of cremation ? " 
asked the Professor, looking at the gentleman 
opposite him through a pair of extraordi- 
narily bright spectacles. The eyes were 
brighter than the medium through which 
these glances passed, like diamonds seen 
in the limpid water that proves them 
genuine. 

I neither advocate nor condemn,” replied 
the other, whose name was Mario. “ I have 
no theories upon the subject. I have never 
studied it.” 

Mario was tall, pale, and thin, his hollow 
eyes were full of sorrow and of searching, 
and there was that strain and sinking in of 
the cheeks which tell of prolonged anguish 
without hope. He had a fine but over-sensi- 
tive face, with a woman’s large eyes, and full, 
soft lips. He was scarcely fifty years of age, 
and the dark hair falling over his forehead 
was so thickly threaded with gray as to be of 
an ashen silver color. 

The Professor might have been of the same 
age, was tall and very blond, and his thin 


Palingenesis. 


89 

hair was all combed carefully back. The 
only decided color in his face was the clear 
beautiful sapphire of his eyes. He was lithe, 
strong, and flexible, like one of those blades 
that you can roll up like a ribbon, and, while 
looking perfectly bloodless, gave an impres- 
sion of perfect health. A man devoted to 
science with a devotion which was a patience, 
not a passion. 

He sat with his thin, nervous hands resting 
on the table before him, the left finger-tips 
accurately meeting the right. The gentleman 
opposite leaned on one elbow, with a hand 
half-hidden in his long beard. 

The two were in a tower in the midst of a 
vineyard on the western coast of Italy. Both 
tower and vineyard belonged to the Profes- 
sor, who spent the greater part of his time 
there. Almost every day towards evening 
he descended to the little town by the sea, 
and wandered through the streets, peering 
at everything through his bright spectacles. 
Sometimes he called upon the rector of the 
college, who considered him the most learned 
man in the world. He considered the rector 
a very good man, but weak, and afflicted with 
curiosity, — not the noble sort which is the 
base of scientific knowledge, but its shadow. 


90 


Autumn Leaves. 


which is one of the roots of gossip. For this 
reason, on the rare occasions when his visits 
were returned he never invited his visitor to 
go higher than the first floor of the tower, a 
room where any one might enter. 

The semi-rustic citizens of the town looked 
upon the Professor as an oddity, and laughed 
at him with a comfortable sense of superi- 
ority. The superstitious feared him, and 
passed by on the other side. They believed 
that he was possessed of forbidden knowl- 
edge, and that he had the evil eye. For his 
part, he looked upon them with philosophical 
indifference, as beings in whom the beast 
predominated. 

It had been his habit to go on a journey 
now and then. Now and then some stranger 
came to see him, — possibly a person of note ; 
for he had a good repute in certain scientific 
circles. But he kept the common curious 
very decidedly at arm’s length. His vignai- 
uolo was his portiere, and had a little lodge 
at the gate. His orders were to admit no 
one except Signor Silvio, the rector, or some 
stranger presenting a card. 

His present visitor the Professor had found 
looking through the latticed gate when he 
came up from town that afternoon. He 


Palingenesis. 


9 * 


stood there gazing with the vague earnestness 
of one whose mind is full of thoughts quite 
alien to what the eyes behold, seeing some- 
thing beyond the vineyard. When the owner 
of the place appeared, he did not start. He 
merely stood aside out of the path and bowed 
slightly, but without any change of expres- 
sion. 

There is something impressive in an intense 
preoccupation which is not absence of mind. 
It excludes, without being either rude or un- 
conscious. The Professor, who was appre- 
ciative, if not sympathetic, could not but 
perceive that the person before him had suf- 
fered a great defeat on some one of the many 
battle-fields of life, and that he had lost all 
consciousness of trivialities. 

Would you like to come in ? ” he asked, 
unlocking the gate. 

If I may without intruding,” the stranger 
replied, with that negative courtesy of man- 
ner which is at once without compliment 
and without offense. No possibility of a 
smile showed itself in his face. 

They entered together, the Professor 
locked the gate after him, and they walked 
slowly side by side along the path leading to 
the tower. The sunset was in their faces, at 


92 


Autumn Leaves. 


their left, the vineyard sloped towards the 
town, and beyond the town was the sea. It 
was a cloudless June evening, and the sun 
was a half-disk of dancing red gold on a 
purple mountain-top. In the silence they 
heard sharply the crackling of little twigs 
beneath their feet. The air was rosy, and 
sweet with the delicate odor of vine-blos- 
soms. The birds were at their pause between 
vespers and compline. The fresh canes which 
supported the vines shone like gold through 
their leaves. There were boats out on the 
shining sea: one could see the spray that 
fell from their oars, and the red waistbands 
of the sailors. 

The scene was lovely and peaceful; but an 
expression of distress was added to the fixed 
sorrow of the strangers face. He turned 
his head every moment to look at the town, 
and his step grew every moment more reluc- 
tant. At length he stopped. 

“Can one see the rector’s house from 
here ? ” he asked. 

The Professor pointed it out. “ It is there 
beside the cathedral tower. You cannot see 
the whole house, but only the end of it. 
There is a long window with persiane open- 
ing on a little terrace. The terrace seems to 


Palingenesis, 93 

touch the tower. The parapet is visible up 
against the sea.” 

“ Oh ! oh ! ” murmured the stranger, in a 
voice that was faint and tremulous with an- 
guish, pressing his hands over his heart. 
- Oh ! ” 

His eyes were fixed on the terrace that 
lifted itself against the bright sea. 

“ I used to sit there with her!' he said, 
after a moment, still gazing. '‘We looked 
up here sometimes, and promised each other 
to visit the tower together; but we never 
came. She said that it was beautiful, stand- 
ing out a softly-mottled amber-color against 
the blue sky. She laughed and said that we 
would come here to live. Oh ! oh ! ” 

It was the moan of one who, already faint 
with prolonged suffering, undergoes a painful 
surgical operation. Sorrow had so incurably 
transfixed his soul as to have become a phys- 
ical stigmata. 

“ Adelaide — you knew her? ” the Professor 
asked, somewhat hastily. 

The wonder of this strange visitor was ex- 
plained at once. 

“ And you ? ” the other exclaimed, turning 
upon him with dilated eyes. 

“You are, then, Mario Cagliare,” said the 


94 


Autumn Leaves, 


Professor. “ I knew her during the last three 
months of her life/’ he added. 

“You knew her!” his visitor exclaimed, 
gazing at him fixedly for a moment. 

Then suddenly his eyes grew dim, his 
parted lips were closed convulsively. He 
covered his face with his hands, and burst 
into a passion of tears. 

We have said that the Professor was not 
sympathizing. He watched this paroxysm 
of despairing grief without a sign of emotion. 
But he was gentle. 

“ Come with me, Mario, to the tower,” he 
said, laying a quietly compelling hand on his 
visitor’s arm. “ Come and rest. You can 
see better from the window there.” 

Mario ceased weeping as suddenly as he 
had begun, and they went to the tower to- 
gether. But the Professor did not arrest 
this visitor’s progress at the chamber where 
he received the rector. Unlocking a nar- 
row door, he preceded him up a stair built 
in the thickness of the wall. It led to a 
dimly-lighted mezzanino which was appar- 
ently used as a lumber-room. Passing this, 
they ascended a second stair like the first, 
and arrived at the piano nobile of the tower. 
There were no ante-chambers nor corridors. 


Palingenesis. 


95 


Each floor consisted of a single circular 
room. The one they entered now was lofty, 
and had high windows reached by steps. It 
was scantily but decently furnished as a salon 
or library, and surrounded with cases of 
books, of preserved birds and insects, of 
specimens of earths and ores. 

But the Professor did not stop here. Draw- 
ing a porte-monnaie from his pocket, he took 
a small key from it, touched the spring of a 
lock-cover, opened a third door and again 
ascended. 

The chamber they entered now was differ- 
ent in character from those below. Five 
long, narrow windows reaching from floor to 
ceiling filled it with light and gave an en- 
chanting prospect in every direction. There 
was a narrow balcony outside these windows, 
extending quite round the tower. Two or 
three chairs, and a large round table with a 
black marble top, occupied the center of the 
chamber, and the walls were lined with shallow 
cases shut in with glass. These cases were 
filled with a variety of objects. There were 
surgical and chemical instruments, lenses, 
bottles and vials of all sizes, lamps, books 
which were distinguished only by a number 
and which seemed to be manuscript, and, 


96 


Autumn Leaves, 


over all, a line of separate cases, half of which 
were empty, the other half scantily occupied 
by a number of crystal amphoras of different 
sizes, held between an under and an upper 
shelf. 

It was evidently the Professor’s workroom. 

He opened one of the southern windows, 
pushed a chair before it, and pointed silently. 
When Mario had seated himself there, and 
was gazing with strained eyes towards the 
town, he pressed a field-glass into his hand. 
Mario received it without a word of thanks 
or a backward glance. He resigned himself 
to be served as a sick person does. 

There it was, the little terrace where they 
had sat so many a time, inebriated with 
mingled joy and sorrow ! The lens brought 
it so near that he could see the stains on its 
brick pavement and the tiny weeds in its 
brick parapet. There was the long window 
with its green persiane and the lace curtains 
dropping to the floor. They always stopped 
for a last kiss behind those curtains before 
coming out on the terrace. Everything was 
as he had left it scarcely a year ago. The 
year sank out of sight while he gazed, and 
the wretched man who looked from afar at 
this scene consecrated to him by a supreme 


Palingenesis, 


97 


love became as the shadow of an ugly dream. 
He lifted the lace curtain and entered that 
chamber. There was a blue velvet sofa where 
she sat smiling at him and holding out a wel- 
coming hand. He heard her sweet command 
to draw the curtain close. He sat beside 
her, with her head on his shoulder, her silken 
hair stirring in his breath, her form softly 
pressing his side, her hand caressing his with 
light, soft touches. 

The Professor, meanwhile, had seated him- 
self at the table, the top of which turned on 
a pivot and was set all round with drawers. 
He opened one of these, took out a micro- 
scope, and, bending over it, looked down the 
jeweled passage which was a beetle’s throat. 

This conduct, which seemed the result of 
sensibility of feeling, was, in fact, dictated by 
a delicate intellect. He wished Mario to re- 
main. 

The Professor, who had begun his studies 
with an enthusiastic interest in physical laws, 
was rapidly growing to care for them only as 
a means of arriving at psychic knowledge. 
Unlike many who become more material in 
idea the more they study matter, he had 
begun as a materialist and was constantly 
etherealizing. At twenty he had said, “ There 
7 


Autumn Leaves. 


98 

is no spirit: all is but different degrees of 
matter.” At forty he corrected himself, or, 
at least, changed his formula : “ There is no 
matter : all is but different degrees of spirit.” 
Which was, perhaps, saying the same thing. 

There were reasons why he should feel an 
interest in this man. Besides, he had never 
before had the opportunity offered him of 
experimenting on a broken heart. It is true, 
however, that he was willing to heal it ; but he 
wished to watch the progress of its healing. 

The arm holding the field-glass, becoming 
weary, sank unconsciously, and in an instant, 
with a shock, the visions of the past fled like 
shadows, and the terrible present confronted 
once more the shrinking dreamer. 

Mario uttered a faint cry, and turned from 
the window. For a moment he seemed not 
to know where he was, nor with whom. Then 
recollection returned. 

“You knew her!” he said, repeating the 
last words he had uttered. 

The Professor gently pushed the micro- 
scope aside, but without raising his eyes. He 
leaned his head upon his hand, his elbow on 
the table, and seemed reading his answer 
from the marble : “ I came here three months 
before her death : that was a month after you 


Palingenesis. 


99 


went away. I used to meet her out walking 
with her maid. I looked at her with interest, 
not because she was beautiful, but because 
she was so full of life. I spoke with her two 
or three times at the rector’s. I perceived 
then that she was fragile, like one of those 
large, swiftly- growing lilies which a touch 
may snap. Her life would naturally be brief 
and full of color. It is a mistake to think 
that large women are usually the strongest. 
I have found a medium size the most endur- 
ing. She had all the delicacy of a flower or 
an infant, with the size of a Juno.” 

“Yes,” Mario said, with an eager anguish 
of appreciation. “ Her flesh was like swan’s- 
down to the touch. Her hand seemed to 
melt in mine.” 

The Professor continued : “ She did not, 
however, fade like a flower : she went out 
like a flame. Her fever was short and violent, 
— a simple fever. She was burned at an in- 
visible stake by — I cannot say an invisible 
flame, for she was wrapped in fire. When I 
saw her, her cheeks and lips were of a vivid 
crimson, and her eyes sparkled with brilliancy. 
She was excited, exalted, but reasonable. I 
was called to pronounce upon her sanity. 
She had certain wishes ” He hesitated. 


lOO 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ Her uncle was not sure that she knew what 
she was saying. I found her mind remark- 
ably clear and logical. An excited person 
sometimes is so. It is a common mistake to 
associate always coolness with reason. Reason 
dwells at that altitude where the mental 
atmosphere is clear, and varies with the char- ■ ^ I 
acter. Reason is sometimes luminous and ■ 
winged, sometimes it goes on four legs. The 
uncle yielded to my decision and to her "i 
wishes.” '! 

"a 

When he paused for a moment, Mario re- , ^ 
mained silent, gazing at him breathlessly. 

I began by studying medicine,” the Pro- 
fessor resumed. “ My specialty was nervous 
diseases. From the nerves I naturally went , 
to magnetism and electricity. This put an end ^ 
to my regular practise. In fact, I had found ',ii 
it annoying from the first. Regular practise 
is practising in harness. At the best the . ^ 
physician is sufficiently hampered. One of 
the greatest misfortunes is that he has so 
often to see the malady distorted through 
the medium of the patient’s mind, not being 
able, or not being allowed, to set that medium 
aside.” 

The speaker paused again, as if to see ^ 
whether he had succeeded in turning Mario’s ■' ■i 


Palingenesis. i o i 

attention a point aside from its one engross- 
ing subject. 

“ It was the uncle who separated us,” 
Mario said. “ Being an orphan, she had 
always lived with him, though she was in- 
dependent pecuniarily. He sent her here to 
pass the summer with the rector’s family, 
thinking that I would not follow her. I 
followed. The rector made a little opposi- 
tion at first, then declined all responsibility. 
Adelaide was her own mistress, or soon would 
be, he said. He pretended not to know how 
much we were together ; but he reminded me 
that in marrying her I would be dependent 
on my wife, and that while I was poor she 
was not rich. It aroused my pride. Oh, 
what has pride to do with love ? Then a 
chance was offered me to become rich. But 
I must go away for six months. She never 
fully consented ; but I went. I was to go to 
Spain, she to remain here till I should come 
for her. The night before I went we were 
privately married.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the Professor, looking up. 

For three months and a half I received a 
letter every day,” Mario went on, without 
seeming aware of the interruption. Then 
one day — it was not a letter, it was a thunder- 


102 


Autumn Leaves, 


bolt struck me ! ” He put his hands to his 
temples, pressing them hard. The news of 
her sickness was to me the news of her death. 
She wrote herself, but she said ‘ addio' She 
never wrote again. Somebody else wrote. 
I lay there — I don’t know where I was — and 
let the ten days’ storm pass over me. I 
scarcely felt the last stroke.”^ 

He was silent a moment, then resumed, 
his hands still tightly clasping his temples : 
“ I dared not come here, and I could not stay 
away. It is six months since she died ; and 
all that time I have been hovering about the 
place. I have come within sight of it by 
land and by sea, have stood on the top of the 
mountain there, and sailed to the point you 
see at the south, and ridden towards it through 
that long fading strip of campagna ; and each 
time when the walls and roofs began to take on 
their familiar shapes to me, and I could see the 
church-tower against the sky as we used to 
see it from that terrace, I cried out, and fled.” 

He raised his face with a sudden calm. 

“ But at last I come,” he said. The 
frenzy of my grief is past. I am broken in 
strength and spirit. I weep instead of shriek- 
ing. I feel myself dying ; and I wish to die 
where she breathed her last.” 


Palingenesis. 


103 

He sighed, and looked down towards the 
town, over which transparent shadows were 
softly gathering, while the vineyard and 
tower were still glowing with a clear topaz 
light. 

‘‘ The arch-enemy which humanity has to 
conquer is the fear of death,” the Professor 
said. “ Christianity professes to have done 
that in the persons of its highest represent- 
atives ; but they conquered death only by 
despising life. What we need is the wisdom 
to cherish life and enjoy it to its fullest in 
our several ways, while at the same time we 
cease to tremble at that change in the form 
of individual life which we call death.” 

The Professor went on to describe the 
beliefs of different nations and times concern- 
ing death and a future existence, and, some- 
what abruptly interrupting himself, put the 
question with which this record opens. 

While he talked, the evening had softly 
opened out its cloudless way to the stars. 
The Ave Maria bells had ceased ringing, the 
birds had sunk into their nests. But in the 
transparent twilight of that lofty chamber 
the two men were distinctly visible to each 
other, the daylight which still suffused the 
west with silver touching their profiles, one 


104 Autumn Leaves. 

turned northward and the other southward 
as they sat at opposite sides of the table. 

The Professor went on : For the body 
cremation bears to the natural process of 
corruption the same relation which in the 
spirit, according to Christian doctrine, an act 
of perfect contrition bears to lengthened 
penance and expiation : it purifies instantly 
and nobly by a supreme immolation. The 
flame of visible fire and the invisible flame of 
love are the body and soul of purity.” 

As when he spoke of death, he now again 
amplified his subject, mentioned the names 
of noted persons who advocated cremation, 
and exposed their arguments, talked learnedly 
of cremation as practised in ancient times, 
and described its progress in modern times. 

While he talked, the night deepened 
around them. The features of the two men 
became indistinct, their faces showed as pale 
blotches of light, their figures, seen against 
opposite windows, made two blurred shadows 
against the stars. The air was dewy around 
them, and sweet with the delicate odors of 
vines and of herbs. Now and then, in long 
breathing-intervals, the perfume of a rose 
that climbed the tower came floating in and 
touched Mario in the face, as if it were the 


Palingenesis. 


105 

sweet breath of one leaning near him. The 
stars danced with brightness. 

‘‘ All worn-out things should be burned,” 
the Professor said ; “ above all, dead things 
which have had animal life. The soul is 
thus spared an infinite disgust and an en- 
forced exile. The deserted body purified by 
fire, that which once gave it life might will- 
ingly revisit the dust which had rendered it 
visible on earth. If the spirit should not re 
sume its ashes, who can say that the specter 
— what the pagans of old called the shade — 
might not ? That ancient belief that man is 
spirit, shade, and matter cannot be disproved. 
Perhaps what we call beasts are so because 
they lack the spirit, which requires the 
human form. Perhaps imbeciles are beasts 
in human form, the imperfect dual nature 
of the beast lacking that spirit which made 
man’s triune nature like unto God. Perhaps 
lunatics are persons from whom the spirit is 
withdrawn in disgust, or from whom it has 
been driven out violently, leaving an animal 
ever wildly conscious of a supreme but un- 
comprehended loss. Perhaps the human 
body can live with only an animal soul, or 
shade, or specter, whatever you may call it, 
after the spirit has withdrawn, as we see in 


io6 


Autumn Leaves, 


the dying, who breathe when no longer con- 
scious. The two tenants do not leave the 
body together, since they do not go to the 
same place. It is like blowing out a candle : 
first the flame disappears, then, after a while, 
the smoke, leaving the wick dead. I think 
that when a person faints the soul, perhaps, 
leaves the body, and that it may leave the 
body during sleep. It is an ineffable thing, 
only half recognized and never understood by 
the lower being around which it hovers and 
into which it penetrates like an atmos- 
phere.” 

Mario had caught but one idea out of this 
discourse. “You believe — !” he exclaimed 
in a sharp whisper out of the darkness. 

The Professor understood. “ Experiments 
have been made,” he said. “ Duchesne knew 
in Cracow a Polish doctor who preserved in 
amphoras the ashes of certain plants. The 
doctor showed him a rose which grew up out 
of its own ashes and was so perfect that it 
seemed to be just gathered from the tree. I 
can show you the same, and more.” 

He rose and lighted a candle, then closed 
the windows and the shutters, drawing down 
thick curtains over them. 

Mario watched him, pallid with excite- 


Palingenesis. 107 

ment. To that soul which, like a bird blown 
by the tempest, ceaselessly beat itself against 
the dead wall that hid from it its only treas- 
ure, the possibility that some lost thing 
might be resuscitated, some creature called 
back for a moment from the invisible life 
where he had lost her, though but a bird or 
a flower, was a rapture and a terror. She ' ( 
might have seen the bird and touched the 
flower whose image now he waited for. And 
then it seemed to him that such a vision 
from beyond the point of dissolution was a 
door ajar against which he might fling him- 
self and enter by violence. So much pos- j 
sible, what remained impossible ? 

The Professor lighted a cluster of wax 
candles in a little chandelier close to the 
center of the ceiling, and placed a large silver 
spirit-lamp under a silver stand on the table. 
The lamp was so made that the flame could 
be graduated from a tiny blue mist just 
hovering over the wick, to long jets darting 
out in a circle of fire ; and the stand was 
pierced with holes and surrounded by a 
turned-up rim for the protection of whatever 
might be placed on it. Then, pushing a case 
of steps out from a hidden niche, he mounted 
them, and took down three amphoras from 


io8 Autumn Leaves. 

three separate cases, setting them with great 
care, one by one, into openings in the table 
shaped to receive them, lifting the covers so 
closely fitted in the marble as to have seemed 
but natural veins of color. 

These amphoras were of different sizes and 
crystal clear, and each contained a little 
ashes. 

By the way,” said the Professor, arresting 
his hand as he was about placing the smallest 
of the three on the silver stand over the 
lamp, “you do not know what those last 
wishes of Adelaide were which made her 
uncle doubt if she were sane ? ” 

“ What were they ? ” cried Mario. 

“She wished that after death her body 
should be burned,” the Professor said, and 
set the amphora carefully in its place and 
lighted a small violet flame in the lamp 
beneath it, 

“ The cremation was intrusted to me,” he 
pursued, having received no reply. “ It was 
privately done at a solitary point ten miles 
down the coast. Only the uncle, myself, and 
the rector know, besides the necessary assist- 
ants. Several persons have been cremated 
at the same place, but always secretly. There 
is a prejudice in many minds which it is well 


Palingenesis, 1 09 

to evade. But also there is a wider favorable 
conviction than is generally suspected.” 

He looked at his companion to see what 
his silence meant. It meant horror. Mario 
was staring at him with fiery eyes, but his 
tongue, his whole body, seemed to be par- 
alyzed. 

“ The ashes were sealed in an urn and en- 
closed in a tomb in the wall of the church 
below,” the Professor went on, calmly. “ I 
think she meant that they should be given 
to you. ‘ Keep them till they are asked for.’ 
That is what she said. Now look and see a 
lily ! ” 

Mario’s eyes followed mechanically the 
sign given them, and fixed themselves upon 
the ashes in the amphora, warm now from 
the lamp. These ashes were stirring gently, 
and a mist rose floating over them. Then 
from the center was pushed slowly up a tiny 
lance of folded green, like a furled banner. 
It grew and unfolded itself, and became a 
leaf ; and as it grew another tiny lance ap- 
peared, and yet another, crowding leaf on 
leaf without a sound. Large stems, juicy, 
transparent, and crisp, held these broad veined 
leaves that found the crystal of the amphora 
no obstacle to their growth, passing it as they 


I lO 


Autumn Leaves. 


passed the air. Then from the center of the 
plant rose four stems like scepters, tipped 
with pale green buds that swelled and whit- 
ened and separated at the ends into back- 
ward-curling points. Slowly and steadily, 
watched in breathless silence, the visionary 
flowers unfolded, till they hung four droop- 
ing clusters of superb white lilies, silvery 
white in all their gleaming petals, gleaming 
gold in all their radiant hearts, an exquisite 
wonder fair enough to grow unchanged in 
Paradise. 

“ Oh ! ’’ sighed Mario, in an ecstasy. “ She 
may have seen that flower ! ” 

The Professor extinguished the lamp. For 
an instant longer the lily stood there in all 
its beauty ; then it grew dim, and dimmer, 
sinking down, lessening, faded to a mist, and 
disappeared. 

The Professor placed a second amphora on 
the stand, lighted the lamp again, and rose 
to replace the amphora of the lily in its case 
on the wall. Coming back, he said, “ Van 
der Beet declares that the corpuscles of the 
blood contain the seed of the animal, and 
that the seed contains the animal. He dis- 
tilled fresh human blood, and says that he 
found in it the specter of a human body, and 


Palingenesis. 


Ill 


that the specter moaned. This is said to be 
the reason why the Jews were forbidden to 
eat anything mixed with blood. He who 
eats or drinks blood will have in him the 
elements and nature of the beast whose blood 
it was ; and the stronger conquers. The lion 
and the tiger grow strong on blood ; the 
blood he drank was the sole life of the vam- 
pire. Look now ! ” 

Mario was already looking eagerly. The 
ashes in the amphora stirred, a mist rose and 
covered it, and condensed, and rose higher as 
it took shape, then suddenly shook itself into 
visible life, — a lark ! All the little fluffy 
feathers were distinct, its wings outspread, 
its throat swelling with an inaudible song. 
As true a lark it looked as ever sprang out of 
the grass at morning, singing to the dawn, 
all palpitating joy and music. So perfect 
was the posture of its soaring, while retaining 
still the same relation to the place, that all 
the place seemed to be soaring with it. 

Mario felt a sense of dizziness, and covered 
his eyes with his hands. Had she heard the 
song inaudible to him ? Oh, the wall was 
not so dense as it had seemed. A flower had 
been flung over, a bird had flown through. 
His hope and longing grew an agony. 


II2 


Autumn Leaves. 


When he looked up, the bird had disap- 
peared, and only a thin mist hovered above 
its ashes. 

The Professor rose and replaced the am- 
phora in its case, and came back to his seat. 
“ I have never tried it,’’ he muttered to him- 
self. “ Shall I try it now ? ” 

Mario was gazing at him, his lips parted as 
if waiting to speak. If animals and plants 
can — why not — ? ” he whispered ; and his 
eyes and face explained and finished the 
question. 

“You are nervous and Excited,” the Pro- 
fessor said, with a certain coldness. “ I have 
perhaps done wrong in showing you what I 
have kept secret from all else. Maybe we 
had better say no more.” 

“ Pardon me,” Mario said, eagerly. “ Grief 
had made me desperate and careless of all 
but itself. I have had no thought of con- 
trolling myself or hiding my misery. It was 
because I did not care. But I can control 
myself. I have a strong will. I will be calm. 
If you tell me to smile, I will smile so that 
you would think I was happy. But do not 
send me from this place where life and death 
unfold themselves. You have given me what 
I thought never to have, — a hope, a consola- 


Palingenesis. 


tion which is not death. With such studies 
and such powers as yours, I could patiently en- 
dure what space of life remains to me.” 

The Professor watched him keenly. “ Is 
it so much, then, to see the specter of a bird 
or flower? ” 

Mario’s hollow cheeks were growing red. 

It is much as a beginning ! I would study, 
leaving everything else. I would take you 
for my master, and the fortune she left me 
should be half yours. We would follow up 
this track through the air ; I would — ” 
His voice had gradually sunk till it became 
a whisper, and he no longer addressed his 
companion, but seemed to be thinking aloud. 
Then, looking down, he sank into a feverish 
revery, imagining what wild thing might be 
possible. 

He was scarcely conscious that the Pro- 
fessor had moved the silver lamp and stand 
aside a little further from him and placed 
the third and largest amphora on them. His 
fancy teemed with visions. He knew not 
where he was, or took the place as a part of 
his dream. His cheeks crimson, his lips 
parted, his downcast eyes sparkling, he lived 
another life. The lamp burned with a violet 
flame tipped with rose, as he saw, and a white 


Autu7nn Leaves. 


114 

mist soared above it. Almost he saw that it 
was a tall column of mist, silvery white as 
were the lilies, opaque and curling into folds 
like drapery. 

Then he knew that the Professor sat beside 
him with a hand clasped tightly on his arm. 
There was an awful silence everywhere, and 
something sweet and solemn in the air, a 
sense of terror, too, that made him fear to 
lift his eyes. An odor floated over him 
from a sponge laid on the table near, and 
seem to press his eyelids down. He turned 
languidly towards the lamp, and saw its 
flame rose-tipped, and knew that something 
tall and white floated above. 

“ Do not move nor speak ! ” 

He heard the whisper at his ear, and felt 
the hand tremble on his arm 

His languid glance crept slowly upward. 
What had seemed smoke or a mist was 
long folds of a white garment, dropping 
straight and outlining two hidden feet, the 
folds opaque yet softly luminous. Slowly, 
inch by inch, his dreamy glance moved up- 
ward. Two hands, lovely with rosy palms 
and finger-tips and dimpled joints, hung 
down among the folds of white with the 
fringed ends of an azure girdle. 


Palingenesis. 


“5 


Mario’s head reeled for a moment with 
the strong muffled blow his heart struck sud- 
denly. He rose slowly and stood upright, 
both his arms in the strong grasp that held 
him back. The drug he had breathed still 
lay a weight upon his nerves and muscles ; 
but he was conscious. 

There she stood, his darling, rosy with 
perfect life ! The hair unbound fell down in 
waves, the brow shone like a pearl, the 
sweetness of a smile hovered about the lips, 
the smooth and richly-colored cheeks were 
hers, the chin, the throat with its full curve, 
— Adelaide ! It was she as she had stood 
his bride, now floating in the air before him, 
living, visible, and perfect. Those eyes — 
were they the same ? Was there a soul in 
their unchanging brilliant gaze fixed unwink- 
ingly on space ? The gods when they came 
down to earth had such eyelids, immovable 
and level. There she stood, his love, his 
lost idol, his bride, steadfast and living in 
the air before him. 

His life seemed to go out of him like a 
mist of fire as he gazed. 

“ Adelaide ! ” he whispered, faintly. “ Look 
at me ! ” 

One of the hands that held his arm was 


ii6 


Autumn Leaves. 


withdrawn, and the Professor reached across 
the table and drew the lamp from under the 
amphora. 

“ Adelaide, look at me ! ” panted Mario. 

The serene and brilliant eyes remained 
immovable, but a slight mist came over them. 
A slight dimness hovered round the radiant 
face, the outlines of the figure grew indistinct, 
the vision began to recede. 

As he saw it, Mario uttered a cry that 
seemed to split his heart in twain, and broke 
with sudden force away from the hands that 
would have held him. 

“ Adelaide, stay ! ” 

He threw himself forward with out- 
stretched arms to clasp the fading vision, 
and fell headlong to the floor, bearing the 
amphora with him with a crash of broken 
crystal and a cloud of flying ashes that had 
once contained a soul. 

“ Fool that I was to trust him ! ” muttered 
the Professor, as he stepped to lift the 
motionless figure lying face downward on 
the floor. 

It was a dead weight he lifted ; for the 
soul of Mario had flown out in swift pursuit 
of the vision of his lost bride. 


Pythagoras. 


117 


PYTHAGORAS. 

He gathered by the templed Nile a store 
Of varied knowledge : Egypt’s subtle lore : 
He learned Chaldean science — all the page 
Sparkling with starry signs of many an age. 
The Cretan Magi taught him. Earth and skies 
Gave him their occult hints, sweet poesies. 

Was it his joy to hear once more the breeze 
Toss the acanthus leaves ’twixt the blue seas 
Of Greece that brought at last the hour su- 
preme ? 

When, softly through the husks of life, a 
stream 

Of song divine stole on his ravished ears, 
And round him burst the music of the 
spheres ! 

Surges ineffable went sweeping by, 

A myriad-voiced majestic symphony. 

The sun flashed forth his chant, and, echoed 
back, 

The antiphon rang from the zodiac. 

Star called and answered star ; and, all in tune, 
The days and seasons set their measured rune. 


Autumn Leaves, 


1 18 

He heard the silvery whisper from afar 

Where timid dawn leans o’er the morning- 
star ; 

The crashing orchestra of darkness, where 

Memories of chaos shudder in the air ; 

On the black cloud sun-burst and mist un- 
roll 

In choral tones the rainbow’s magic scroll. 

The frolic song of rivulets that play 

Round the dumb racks in tantalizing 
spray ; 

The cataract’s impassioned monotone ; 

The tuneful flow of rivers, bright and 
lone ; 

The lullaby Titanic, full of dreams. 

Where savage oceans rock their cradled 
streams. 

Such music, sweet and deep, thundered and 
purled 

And clashed, — the veiling pageant of the 
world 

A cadenced passing of all passing things 

Across a sea that still forever sings. 

The listener felt in his expanding soul 

From chord to chord its wakening anthem 
roll! 


Pythagoras. 


119 

Then knew he what the shape and color 
mean 

That set the poet singing, — moonlight’s 
sheen, 

The cloud, the rose, the storm, the night, the 
sea — 

Touches to set the prisoned music free 

In melodies close to the dizzy verge 

Where discord lurks, and love and life 
emerge. 

Then knew he that the sculpturea marble 
grew 

Curved to a rhythmic breath blown strongly 
through 

The sculptor’s listening being as he wrought. 

Freeing to harmony his struggling thought. 

And how the orator’s persuasive tone 

Draws the whole jangled crowd to unison. 

Let him, who never saw nor heard the sea. 

Mock at the shell’s attesting monody. 

It was no myth the man of Samos taught. 

For him whose luminous and searching 
thought 

Lights its own pathway through the dust of 
things. 

Creation’s music, like a fount, upsprings ! 


120 


Autumfi Leaves. 


¥s 

A GLORIA. 

A VARIED and beautiful landscape, an Ita- 
lian landscape, with a dry torrent-bed curving 
whitely through the green plain, and a 
mountain-wall built along the north and east, 
was shining in the afternoon sun of a Sep- 
tember day. 

Here and there from the great procession 
of mountains some lesser height pushed itself 
out into the plain with an old castle, or rocca, 
on its gray summit, and a rolling smoke of 
olives, or the fretted green of vineyards, or a 
small walled city climbing its lower steps. 

Seen from a distance, the mountain seemed 
to have taken the sunny little town onto its 
knee. 

One of these cities looked southward and 
had the full sunrise and sunset, it was so far 
advanced into the plain, and there was not a 
dark street nor a sour, damp alley within the 
walls. Outside the walls bright little casine, 
all* white and pink and gold colored, were 
scattered among the vigne and the laurels and 
the ivy. 

A lady and gentleman issued from the gate 


A Gloria. 


I2I 


of one of these villas and sauntered slowly 
up the tree-shaded avenue leading to the 
town. They were two artists, old friends, 
who had met in this city partly by arrange- 
ment, partly by chance, and were getting 
sketches here, the lady for charming bits of 
color, each of which should have a story to 
tell ; the gentleman for some form of modern 
plastic life that would refresh his mind after 
a long study of the antique. 

He was idealistic, discontented, and some- 
what skeptical ; she was religious and full of 
enthusiasm. They called each other Eliza- 
beth and Alexander, and were happy together 
in that most ideally delightful of friendships, 
where no jealousy intrudes to embitter it — 
the friendship of artists. Next to a purely 
spiritual and religious sympathy, such as that 
of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clara, or St. 
Francis of Sales and Jane Frances Chantal, 
there is no earthly association so exquisite 
as that of two artists enthusiastically devoted 
to their art. Nor can the religious element 
be entirely wanting if they are true artists. 
It is impossible that man or woman should 
strive with all their hearts to embody noble 
ideas in beautiful forms without having, 
sooner or later, some consciousness of a 


122 


Autumn Leaves. 


supreme source from which all beauty is 
derived. 

The lady wore a black lace veil on her head, 
and carried a gold-lined parasol in one hand 
and a pomegranate in the other. She looked 
up to the town, and let her glance sweep 
to right and left of it over the crowded 
heights. 

“ How peacefuj it all looks ! ” she said. 
“ There is such a suggestion of trustfulness 
on the one side and protection on the other 
in one of these small cities snuggled up to a 
mountain-side.” 

The gentleman had been looking straight 
ahead, his large blue eyes having the expres- 
sion of one who sees only his own thought. 
He took off his hat, ran his slender fingers 
through the mass of blonde ringlets that 
covered his head, and glanced upward some- 
what unwillingly. He had wished to prolong 
a discussion which his companion was setting 
aside. 

Liberty ! Liberty ! ” he said. “ That is 
what the mountains always suggest to me. 
They rise into the pure air far above the 
lower earth, they stretch themselves out, and 
nothing can break them down.” 

^^Your description would serve equally 


A Gloria. 


123 


well for tyranny,” the lady said with a slight 
smile. But perhaps that is your idea — it is 
the popular idea — of liberty : a glorious free- 
dom to say and do whatever you like, regardt 
less of the natural consequence that you will 
thereby prevent others from doing what they 
would like to do.” 

‘ Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed 
in thy name ! ’ ” she added after a moment, 
her companion not having recovered from 
her dampening remarks. 

He still remained silent. 

She looked at him with a smile, gave him 
her parasol to hold, and went to a flat stone 
beside the road to crack the pomegranate she 
had brought from the villa. 

The gentleman watched her somewhat 
dreamily, wondering how he could put that 
easy stooping posture into clay without los- 
ing the grace of it. Stay as you are a 
minute ! ” he exclaimed. “ Let me see how 
you have got the other arm. I never saw so 
much swing in a stoop.” 

I shall soon swing over onto the ground 
if you don’t let me up,” she said laughingly. 
'' I am a top. My right toe just touches the 
ground. I rest on my left foot. My left 
arm and knee make an X.” 


124 


Autumn Leaves. 


He took the half pomegranate she gave 
him, and sucked the mild, fresh juice as they 
walked on, catching a leaf-stem from a tree 
in passing to pry out ruby bunches of the 
glowing seed-grains, “ Pomegranates are 
more for the eye than the taste,’' he said. 

But I like to eat them.” 

This is for something more than the eye,” 
she said lightly. “ See ! ” holding up her 
half of the fruit, “ I am going to use it as a 
text. Remember whom I follow. Christ 
said : ‘ Consider the lilies of the field.’ Solo- 
mon said : ‘ Go to the ant, thou sluggard. 
Consider her ways, and be wise ! ’ I say, 
then. Consider the pomegranate, my friend.” 

A man was passing with a donkey laden 
with straw — that is, a huge mass of straw was 
moving up the road before him with four 
little hoofs tick-tacking underneath it. The 
lady caught one of these straws and began 
to push up carefully the grains of the pome- 
granate and to separate without breaking 
them. 

‘‘ How pretty the yellow straws look 
against the ruby pulp ! ” she said. “ But that 
isn’t the lesson I wish you to consider.” 

‘‘ Elizabeth,” said the gentleman, gazing 
after the man and the donkey, “ behold one 


A Gloria, 


125 


little quadruped which cannot be beaten. 
He couldn’t feel a blow. He is packed all 
round a yard deep with straw.” 

At that moment the man before him ut- 
tered a stinging “ Ah-h-i-i ! ” and inserted the 
stick he carried into a hole in the straw where 
a donkey’s tail might be discovered in dim 
perspective, using it with such effect as to 
notably accelerate the tick-tacking. 

I give it up I ” sighed the sculptor. ‘‘ And 
now for your sermon.” 

She held the pomegranate toward him, 
pushing the grains about with her straw. 
** Look at the shapes of the grains. I don’t 
suppose that any two are alike. Some have 
three, others four, five, or six sides. Some are 
faceted like a brilliant-cut gem. All are an- 
gular. Yet if left quite free they would 
naturally have followed the shape of the seed, 
and been very nearly oval. But there were a 
good many white, strong seeds in this little 
walled city of a pomegranate-shell, and no 
space to throw away between curved lines. 
Perhaps, too, the life of each was vivified yet 
more by contact and pressure. So each oval 
has given a tiny space here and taken a tiny 
space there, adjusting its tender skin and soft 
pulp to circumstances, submitting to have 


126 


Autumn Leaves. 


angles instead of curves for the sake of living 
harmoniously with its fellows. But the pres- 
I sure is only an outward one. The seeds are 
all perfect and untouched. That is my lesson 
from the pomegranate. Social liberty, to be 
just, means the having a good many little 
snips taken out of what we would like to 
do.” 

She began to eat her text as they walked 
on. Her companion smiled, but said noth- 
ing. 

I am two years older than you, Alexan- 
der mio ! ” she said, tossing away the empty 
pomegranate-shell. ‘‘ Study over my lesson 
till you reach my present age of thirty-one, 
then tell me your conclusion. I used to have 
that bull-in-a-china-shop idea of liberty ; but 
I have given it up.” 

They reached the city gate, and entered a 
sunny, empty piazza, all grass-grown, before 
a church. The only person visible was a 
woman seated outside the door of a rough 
stone house. At her elbow was a table with 
a flask of white wine, a dozen or two of wal- 
nuts, a few apples and a loaf of bread. It 
was her shop ; and while waiting for custom- 
ers she was knitting a beautiful long stocking 
of pure crude silk of a pale, gleaming gold- 


A Gloria, 


127 


color as it came from the cocoon. She was 
a famous knitter, and these stockings were for 
the bishop, whose mother would color them 
a rich Tyrian purple by a process which she 
kept secret. 

As the two artists entered the gate a con- 
fused sound of childish voices reached them 
from a street leading into the piazza, and a 
little boy came running toward them, pur- 
sued by half a dozen others. He turned his 
head from time to time to fling back at his 
pursuers an inarticulate babble of defiance or 
expostulation, but without stopping ; and 
when he reached the two strangers he caught 
the lady’s arm and hid his face in her dress, 
trembling as he clung. 

“ Shame on you, you bad boys ! ” cried 
Elizabeth, suffering the child to cling to her 
while she poured out reproaches on his tor- 
mentors. 

‘‘We weren’t going to hurt him, signora,” 
said one of them. 

“ Isn’t it hurting him to frighten him so ? ” 
she demanded. 

“ He keeps following us ; and we don’t 
want him,” said another. “He can’t play 
nor do anything, and he gets in the way. 
He’s a deaf-mute.” 


128 


Autumn Leaves. 


‘‘ I wonder if any idea of compassion ever 
enters the heart of a child, unless it is put 
there by some older person?’’ said the lady 
to her friend. “ It is such nonsense to call 
children angelic ! They are oftener egotisti- 
cal little fiends ! ” 

^'Pian Piano ! ” said the sculptor, smiling 
at her impetuosity. 

She turned to the children. “You drive 
this poor little boy away from you because 
he is unfortunate,” she said. “Well, wait 
till it comes your turn to be driven away by 
the holy angels. What should they want of 
such company as yours, you ignorant, cruel 

little ” she paused in search of a word 

which should strike terror into them — “ little 
Protestants ? ” 

“We ain’t Protestants ! ” came in an indig- 
nant chorus from the boys. 

Elizabeth lifted the child’s head from her 
arm and spoke to him soothingly. He had 
a pretty, intelligent face, but terror seemed 
to have been impressed upon it as a habit. 
Shut in from all the soothing and joyous 
sounds of nature by that awful silence of the 
deaf, knowing nothing of danger till it fell 
upon him, orphaned, and missing the kind 
and reassuring word which sometimes atones 


A Gloria, 


129 


for an indifferent expression of countenance, 
worse than all, shunned or derided by almost 
every child he met, his life might well have 
been to him an evil dream. 

He looked about when the lady lifted his 
face, saw that his pursuers had gone away 
and where he was. A light sprang into his 
face, and he turned quickly in the direction 
of the knitting-woman. 

Maria ! ” he called out distinctly, and, 
breaking from his protectress, ran toward 
her. But when half-way across the piazza he 
stopped as suddenly as he had started, and 
began to cry, looking helplessly from one 
woman to the other. 

The woman with the knitting called out : 

Come here, Pio ! ” 

He went slowly forward, but looked back. 
The two artists followed him and explained 
what had happened. 

The woman had risen with instinctive 
politeness at their approach, and they saw 
that she supported herself on a crutch and 
begged her to sit down again. 

“The children always tease him,” she 
said; “and I can’t keep him away from 
them. You see, I have but one foot. The 
other was crushed by a cart-wheel, and I had 
9 


130 


Autumn Leaves, 


to have it cut off. Then there is no one 
here but mother and me and mother is very 
old and half-blind. My husband died long 
ago, and I have no children.” 

“ The boy is not yours, then ? ” said Eliz- 
abeth. 

“ No, signora ; his mother died last month. 
They had a room here. Nobody knows 
where his father is. He went away before 
Pio was born.” 

“ Who takes care of the child ? ” 

“ He lives with me, signora. We hope 
to get him into a deaf-and-dumb asylum. 
But he is too young now. He is only six 
years old. Besides, the asylum is very poor. 
Pazienza ! ” She sighed and smiled. “ He 
is welcome to the little that I can do 
for him. But I can’t keep him off the 
street.” 

Elizabeth looked at the child with a 
troubled face. “ He is deaf,” she said ; but 
he is not dumb. He called out ‘ Maria ’ quite 
plainly.” 

“ It is the only word that he can speak, 
signora. It was his mother’s name. How 
he got it in into his mind I do not know. I 
suppose the Madonna put it there.” 

It must be that he was not always deaf,” 


A Gloria. 


the sculptor said. Probably before he was 
able to speak, but while he could hear, the 
name of his mother became familiar to him, 
so that it broke out involuntarily afterward 
when he had need of such help as she would 
have given him.’’ 

He stopped, disconcerted by a swift, frown- 
ing glance from his artist-friend. The cripple 
was looking at him in a puzzled way. 

‘‘Yes, sir,” she said politely when he 
paused. 

“ Maria had begun to teach him some- 
thing,” she said, addressing the lady. 

She called the child to her, and taking a 
rosary that hung on the back of her chair, 
showed him the crucifix. 

He looked at it a moment, then blessed 
himself, making a little moan where each 
sacred name should be. 

Then she reached down a small picture of 
the Madonna from the wall and held it be- 
fore him. 

“ Maria ! ” he said. And then he touched 
the Divine Mother and pointed up to the sky, 
and touched the Divine Infant and again 
pointed up to the sky. 

But the lesson had sharpened again his 
dulled sorrow for his lost mother. 


132 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ Maria ! Maria ! ” he cried, with a wild, 
searching glance around the piazza. 

Elizabeth took him into her arms and he 
clung to her. She took his face in one hand, 
and with the other pointed up to the sky. 

He glanced upward, weeping, then looked 
at the picture. Oh ! how could she teach him 
that she meant his mother, too ? She caught 
him to her breast, pressed him close and 
kissed him ; then putting him back, pointed 
upward. 

He looked at her with wide, startled eyes, 
then stretched his arms upward and broke 
out with a sobbing “ Maria ! Maria ! ’’ 

He understood ! Not only the pictured 
Madonna was there, but the only one who 
had ever loved him was there too. 

The lady and gentleman pursued their 
way. 

“ What did I say that was wrong ? asked 
the sculptor. 

“You did not even know!'' she said. 

“ Cannot you understand that the rosary 
hanging on the back of the chair and the 
little crucifix and Madonna on the wall are 
emblems of all which interposes itself between 
these poor creatures and despair ? You would 
not let her think that the Madonna had a 


A Gloria. 


133 


care over that unhappy child. It seems to 
you a folly. Can you believe that their 
heavenly Father did not provide that conso- 
lation for them when every other hope fails ? " 

“ I did not mean to take the hope away, 
Elizabeth,” the sculptor said seriously. “You 
know I have the habit of speaking from the 
scientific basis ; but I am scarcely the mate- 
rialist you think me. All the patience in 
poverty and sorrow that I have seen here in 
Italy, all the self-respect which seems to flow 
from the very respect which they show to 
those of superior position, and their sure 
looking forward to heaven have not been 
thrown away on me. I do not quite believe, 
yet I do not disbelieve. There must be 
somewhere a great fountain of sweetness that 
they can draw upon.” 

“ Oh, Alexander ! ” 

“ I know,” he went on, “ that science fre- 
quently does no more than call things by an- 
other name when it seems to explain, and 
leaves the mystery unsolved ; and that, as 
you say, when we shall have gone round the 
whole circle of the sciences, and tried them 
in the alembic to find what supreme result 
they were to give us, it may be that the most 
precious jewel of all will be that simple faith 


134 


Autumfi Leaves. 


and charity which childlike souls knew from 
the first. But have a little patience with 
me. 

“ I will never lecture you again,” she said. 

The cripple counted over the money they 
had given her, and smilingly put it into a 
little silk purse she carried hidden in her 
corsets. The boy wandered about the piazza 
with a disconsolate air, then went and sat 
down on the church steps. 

The bells of the church were ringing for 
the death of an infant. It was the custom 
there, on the death of a child under seven 
years of age — that is, incapable of having 
committed mortal sin — to ring the bells, not 
h morto, for the dead, but a gloria, for a pure 
soul entering heaven. 

There were four small, silver-toned bells in 
this church, and they were ringing joyfully. 
The child sat thinking. He remembered 
that once when his mother was with him, a 
little girl had been carried past to the church. 
She was asleep, all dressed in white and cov- 
ered with flowers. His mother had pointed 
at her, then to the sky. The lady to-day had 
told him that his mother had gone there. 
Then it must be that the little flower-crowned 
girl had gone there. He used to see her be- 


A Gloria. 


135 


fore that day, but he never saw her again. 
How did people get there ? 

He looked upward. To his mind the skies 
were a great, blue-walled house, and the moon 
and stars were the lights that shone out at 
night, as he had seen lights shining by night 
from the campagna. 

How did people get there? 

He looked at the mountains rising against 
the blue, and stretching out like a gigantic 
highway. It must be by way of the moun- 
tains. 

He sat and studied over the matter while 
the gloria rang out above him. He thought 
of it till he went to sleep, and it was his first 
thought in the morning. 

As soon as he had eaten his piece of bread 
and drunk a cup of goat’s milk in the morn- 
ing he set out. He had no sense of wrong- 
doing. He could ask no permission and hear 
no denial. His protectress allowed him to 
go where he pleased, sure that he would 
come back when he was hungry or sleepy. 

His road led him first under the city wall. 
It was a quiet road, and the wall was set with 
flowering caper-vines. The child stopped and 
looked up, wishing that he could reach one 
of the lovely purple-and-white blossoms. 


Autumn Leaves, 


136 

Presently he felt himself caught by the 
shoulder and set roughly aside. A diligence 
with four horses had been drawn up sudden- 
ly close behind him as he stood in the middle 
of the road, hearing nothing. 

The driver mounted to his seat again, shook 
his fist at the frightened child, and drove on. 
Pio stood trembling till the diligence was out 
of sight, then pursued his way. But reach- 
ing a turn of the road, he started back and 
hid himself behind a bush. 

Just beyond the turn there was a shrine of 
the Madonna set in the high wall of a vigna, 
and some of the boys who had driven him 
from them the day before were cleaning and 
decorating it for a festa the next day. The 
pastor of the nearest church had entrusted 
them with the work and given them the key 
of the glass door before the picture. It stood 
open now, and one of the boys, mounted on 
a short ladder, was dusting the inside of the 
shrine. Another was sweeping the ground 
before it. Another was washing a pair of 
little vases at a near fountain. A fourth was 
pouring oil and water into a rose-colored 
glass cup, and arranging the floating wick ; 
and a fifth was tying up flowers from a bas- 
ketful brought down from the town. All 


A Gloria. 


137 


their faces were full of serious, earnest pride 
in their task. They were silent, or spoke but 
a few words in low tones. 

In a few minutes the vases were filled with 
flowers, and the lamp lit and in its place, 
where it shone with a soft, glow-worm 
luster. 

The boys stood back to take in the effect 
before locking the door. It seemed to them 
very beautiful. Then they knelt down on 
the grass and said an Our Father and three 
Hail Marys, as the parish priest had bidden 
them. 

Little deaf-and-dumb Pio watched them 
from his hiding-place. To him they seemed 
most wonderful and happy boys. What the 
matter was with himself that they would not 
have him with them he did not know. He 
watched them with fixed and melancholy 
eyes, feeling as alien from their free and 
happy childhood as if he had been some little 
wild beast hidden there in the bush, yet with 
such a sick longing for their society as only 
a human heart could feel. 

When they had gone away he came out of 
his hiding-place and went and knelt on the 
grass as they had done. He blessed himself 
and said Maria ! ” and at that word he cried 


Autumn Leaves. 


again, just one little sob between his absorb- 
ing terror of the boys and his instantaneous 
recollection of what he was about to do. It 
came up like a hidden brook that bubbles up 
above the ground at some chance opening 
and sinks out of sight again in a moment. 
But both the brook and his sorrow were stir- 
ring all the same, though silent and out of 
sight. 

Pio went on his way. The road he had 
taken led round under the walls, and was but 
little frequented. It made a slight rise, then 
turned and plunged down into the luxuriant 
campagna, as into a bath. From this turn a 
rocky path led upward, clinging still to the 
walls. The laborers from above had already 
gone down, and the child met no one. If 
any one were going up the mountain at that 
hour he would take a better path from the 
town, which Pio did not know. 

Presently the rocks ceased. Some of them 
retained blood-marks from the little bare feet 
that had gone over them. Soft, dry turf and 
mossy ledge replaced them. And here the 
mountain air began to do its work on the 
traveler. It was as though some thick cloud 
which had enveloped him felt the sun shining 
through its folds. An electric, flitting breeze 


A Gloria. 


139 


touched him lightly. Birds flew by. He 
saw their fluttering wings and open beaks 
and felt the song he could not hear. The 
melancholy and terror of his face gave place 
to a wondering half-smile. Some perception 
of that heaven which he had never heard of 
stole over his mind. 

The path he followed, lightly traced, made 
a curve around the mountain just before 
reaching its summit. The child hesitated, 
looking upward. A loftier peak was visible 
over the little hamlet and ruined castle above 
him. No ; the entrance he was in search of 
could not be there. 

He followed the curve, and entered on a 
lofty isthmus that stretched out to the side 
of a gigantic mass, two twin heights thrust 
together in primeval days and cooled into 
many a dimple and hollow far up in the sky. 
This was a mountain with a name, famous in 
that region, and often visited by tourists. 
There was a flag-staff on the highest point of 
the broad summit, and a tiny, yellow-washed 
cabin under it. This yellow object, rounded 
at the top, shone like a golden portal in the 
sunlight. 

At last! There it was I At last! For 
the child was tired and hungry. He had left 


140 


Autumn Leaves, 


the town at seven o’clock in the morning, 
and it was now afternoon. 

From the lofty neck of land where he 
stood, a solitary creeping mite in all that 
vastity, the mountains crowded thickly at 
one side, and ran and faded off, ever smaller 
and ever more faintly colored, till they melted 
into a dim, silvery horizon before him ; and 
at the other hand the plain, with its scattered 
dwellings, its rich green, and its silvery tor- 
rent-bed, stretched and faded in its turn till 
the flashing band of the sea was interposed 
between it and the sky. 

And here the little traveler came upon a 
treasure. 

A company of tourists had come up the 
night before to see the sun rise on the neigh- 
boring height, and on their return had left 
the remains of their breakfast securely tied 
up in a coarse napkin for any poor wight 
whom chance might send that way. The 
boy ate and was refreshed. Then he went 
on with the remains of the luncheon in his 
hand. 

The way grew more weary and more beau- 
tiful every moment. There were no rocks on 
this strange, heavenly mountain ; but its sum- 
mit seemed ever to recede as he toiled on. 


A Gloria, 


141 

The sun sank in a flood of golden light that 
turned rosy, and the stars began to come 
out. Pio’s weary feet sank deep in soft, fine 
grass, as in a cushion. He cried lowly with 
fatigue as he went on. The shades of night 
came down, and in the pure, transparent 
darkness the little traveler reached the cabin 
and the flag-staff. He was too much ex- 
hausted to feel the disappointment which 
confronted him. His head was drooping 
toward his shoulder when he reached the 
open cabin door ; and even as he sank onto 
the heap of dried grass inside deep sleep fell 
upon him. 

Only a weary child could have so long and 
deep a slumber. At midnight he turned on 
his fragrant bed, sighed, and became motion- 
less again. He did not see the east grow 
white and the purple shadows of night mass 
themselves into a wall as they crowded down 
the west. He did not see the east grow 
golden, and peak after peak and the sea 
catch fire from it. 

It was a sense of joy all about that wak- 
ened him. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and 
murmured his one word, “ Maria ! ” Then 
he blessed himself and went out, recollecting 
where he was. 


142 


Autumn Leaves, 


The sun was just blazing on the horizon, 
its palpitating orb scarcely detached from 
the serrated line. All the world shone. The 
mountain-top was shaped like a wide, imme- 
morial crater, its dimples and hollows waving 
with fine, thread-like grass a yard high and 
brilliant with flowers. Out of this exquisite 
verdure and color, tossing into the air on 
every hand, sprang the larks in an ecstacy of 
song. They rose from the flowery earth, 
hung on their fluttering wings, and poured 
out a liquid gush of music ; tossed themselves 
higher, hung and sang again, another toss 
and another roundelay, and so upward till 
the wings grew weary. 

The child laughed to see them, and felt 
their joy beating against the impassible 
silence that shut him in. He ate the rest of 
his food, then looked about him, a new 
thought dawning on his mind. The portal 
that he sought to that great palace where the 
pictured Mother and Child, and his own 
mother, and the little girl with her white 
dress and her flowers dwelt could not be here. 
The peaks were no longer against the sky. 
Besides, he reasoned, you do not enter first 
the upper rooms of a house. You go in be- 
low and climb the stairs. 


A Gloria, 


H3 

A momentary pang of disappointment 
came over him. It seemed an age since he 
had seen a human face. He knelt down in 
the flowery grass, with the larks singing 
around him, and blessed himself ; and remem- 
bering the medal and crucifix that hung about 
his neck, he drew them out and kissed the 
faces on them. They were no more dumb to 
him than all other faces were. They com- 
forted him, the dear, familiar faces ! and drew 
him on to finish his quest. 

Just back of the mountain where he was 
two or three strange peaks rose almost like 
obelisks into the air, all gravel and stone from 
their sharp points down to their narrow 
bases, eaten away by torrents, and through 
a rift low down between these peaks was vis- 
ible a dark stone arch through which a light 
shone. 

Maria ! ” cried the child, starting up. 
Oh ! it was near. His mother and the Mother 
with her Child were there ! There was the 
mountain to descend. No matter ! He must 
cross the torrent-beds, and his feet were sore. 
He would cross them ! He must pass those 
rocky peaks. He was not afraid ! He would 
call “ Maria ! Maria ! ” all the way, and per- 
haps they would come out to meet him. 


144 


Autumn Leaves, 


He gathered a handful of the bright flowers 
for Maria’s Child, and set out undoubting. 

Meantime, in the town below a great search 
had been made for the deaf-and-dumb boy. 
Some one had seen him go outside the gate, 
and some one else, whose house overlooked 
the city wall, had seen him in the road below. 

A search, carelessly begun, but growing 
ever more anxious, was made all about the 
campagna. Night came, and there was no 
word of news from the child. No one had 
seen him go up the mountain-path. 

The second day telegrams were sent about, 
and the hamlet above the town was searched. 
The boys whom he had watched at the shrine 
found their hearts, now that they could no 
longer be of any use to him, and searched 
minutely all day long. 

As the second night came on two items of • 
information, which might mean something, 
reached the town. A gentleman in the cam- 
pagna had seen the day before a small, dark 
object, which might have been a goat, but 
that looked like a child, moving along the 
isthmus of land they called the loggia. And 
a contadino just down from the heights said 
that as he was working that morning on a bit 
of land made by the torrents he had heard 


A Gloria. 


145 


what seemed to be a loosened stone roll down 
the mountain near him, and listening then, 
had seemed to hear some one close to him 
whisper, Maria ! Maria ! 

It had startled him so, not having be- 
lieved any living soul to be within a mile 
of the place, that he had come away imme- 
diately. 

The artist friends had been among the 
first and most anxious searchers for the miss- 
ing child, and when they heard this first 
note of hope the lady protested that she 
could not sleep till she knew more. 

‘‘We can make our projected expedition 
to see the sunrise from the mountain and 
hear the larks for to-morrow morning," she 
said. “ Can we have donkeys and four men 
ready to start at midnight ? " she asked of 
their landlady. 

Yes, everything would be furnished them. 

Her plans were quickly laid. They would 
start at midnight, with four men. Two of 
these men would leave them at the base of 
the next mountain and make a circuit of it. 
It would then be early dawn. At the loggia, 
which they would reach just before sunrise, 
the other two men would start on the search, 
leaving them to go on by themselves. They 

lO 


146 


Autumn Leaves. 


would wait on the summit till the men 
should bring them news or nothing. 

Everything was prepared — breakfast, with 
a little wine for the child, who might be 
faint, and a bandage and bottle of sal 
volatile slipped into the basket with trem- 
bling fingers. 

Quite a company gathered in their board- 
ing-house when the project was known, and 
some of the visitors waited to see the little 
party set out. 

“You must watch the flag-staff on the 
mountain to-morrow,” said Elizabeth to one 
of them as she settled herself on the wooden 
saddle of her donkey. “ You can see it 
plainly with an opera-glass from the lower 
piazza. We will signal you the news, if we 
have any to give. If you see a red cloth, 
the child is alive. If you see a white one, 
go into the church down there and tell the 
sacristan to ring the bells h gloria!' 

There was something magically solemn 
and sweet in that shadowy ride over the 
heights under a starry sky. The men swung 
their lanterns about in the dewy darkness, 
the donkeys picked their way with sure, 
strong feet, and not a word was uttered. 

When the air whitened toward dawn two 


A Gloria. 


147 


of the men left them, and when they had 
crossed the loggia the other two tethered 
their animals and set out also to search. The 
two artists went forward on foot and were 
wading knee-deep across the thick, fine grass 
and brilliant flowers when the sun showed 
its first spark of fire above the horizon, and 
the larks began to sing. They seated them- 
selves on a bank and gazed about them in 
silence. The sun came up. The scene was 
heavenly. 

Elizabeth got up and wandered about, 
listening and looking in every direction over 
their crater-like, flowery nest. She went into 
the hut, then came out and unpacked their 
basket, taking out two scarfs, a red and a 
white one. She laid them down and looked 
up at the flag-staff, tears dropping from her 
eyes. Then she went to the sculptor, who 
was gazing fixedly off at the sea. 

Alexander/' she said, ‘^see what I have 
found ! " 

It was a little blue cloth cap, a boy’s cap, 
and like one they had seen Pio wear. “ Isn’t 
it almost incredible that he should have been 
here? ” 

“ I have been thinking as we came along,” 
the sculptor said, “ that perhaps the child 


Autumn Leaves. 


148 

came up here searching for his mother. And 
that led me to thinking what pure love can 
do. And then I thought of your compas- 
sionateness ; and while I thought the sun rose 
before my face.” 

“ Only before your face, Alexander ? ” his 
friend asked gently. 

“ I think it shone through me,” he answered. 
“ That sun seems to me the image of Christ.” 

A sound behind them attracted her atten- 
tion. She turned quickly. One of the men 
had come up unseen by her from the other 
side of the summit, and he was raising her 
white scarf on the flag-staff. She sank onto 
the bank and covered her face with her 
hands. “ Oh ! oh ! ” 

“ He fell and struck his temple,” the man 
said. “ Poor little one ! He is out of his 
troubles. They are bringing him up.” 

The two artists followed him to the other 
side of the summit and saw the men coming 
up. They had made a litter of green 
branches, and the child’s waxen face showed 
like a lily against them. 

They came slowly up the steep way, their 
hats in their hands, reciting prayers as they 
came. 

The lady retreated as they approached. 


A Gloria, 


149 


and signed them to a little knoll in the midst 
of the summit. As they laid their burden 
down there, there was a faint, sweet sound of 
music in the air. Soft, silvery, and fitful, it 
came and went. 

Their signal had been seen down in the 
town, and from the church-tower in the 
grassy piazza at the city gate the bells were 
ringing h gloria for a child’s soul entering 
heaven. 

Poor little Pio had found the palace gate, 
and he was deaf and dumb no longer. 


Autum?i Leaves. 


150 


FROM THE GARDEN OF A FRIEND. 

Carl Petersen was one of the innumer- 
able company of artists who paint pretty 
pictures for a living, and Mimi was his wife. 
They were Danes by parentage, but had lived 
so long in Rome that there was very little 
Dane left in them, except the honor and 
simplicity of character one so frequently finds 
in that people. 

They were about as poor as they could 
comfortably be, this young couple. Carl 
painted from morning till night, and sold his 
pictures to Spilorchia, the dealer, who paid 
for them ten per cent, of the price they ul- 
timately brought. Carl knew that he got 
only ten per cent. ; but it was better to be 
sure of so much than to wait for more from 
purchasers who might never come. What 
can a poor artist do when people will go to 
the dealers instead of the studios to buy ? 
But Carl had a plan of escape from this ser- 
vitude. He meant to lay by a little money, 
bit by bit, till he should be able to keep back 
one picture from Spilorchia, and place it in- 
stead in the window of a friendly bookseller. 


From the Garden of a Friend, 15 1 

He might have to wait a good while ; but then 
he would have ten times as much. And one 
step made in advance, the second must follow. 

The Petersens lived in one of those Ro- 
man paradises which you reach by passing 
through a Roman purgatory, if that can be 
called a purgatory which soils instead of 
cleansing. You cross to Trastevere, pass 
through several dingy streets, enter a dingier 
one, that is narrow and dark as well, pass a 
gloomy portone into a green and dripping 
court, go up a wide stair that smells of garlic 
and is sometimes infested by dirty children, — 
up and up to the top. There is an anteroom 
which has possibilities. Disgust gives place 
to doubt. There is an ineffably dingy kitchen, 
which nevertheless calls forth an exclamation 
of delight from an artist ; for, going to the 
window, you see through wide coincident 
rifts of many a succeeding line of roofs an ex- 
quisite airy vista of mountain, villa, and grove. 

Carl had advertised for a studio with two 
or three rooms attached, and on their first 
visit to the locality the young couple began 
as we have, leaving the studio for the last. 
They were anxious, for they had been house- 
hunting for a whole month, and were nearly 
worn out. Besides, time was money to them. 


Autmnn Leaves. 


152 

The last door opened. They caught their 
breath, stepped in, and gave one glance ; then 
turned and rushed into each other’s arms. 
Eureka ! 

The chamber was palatial in size, and 
beautifully proportioned ; but the glory of it 
was what came in from outside. Three win- 
dows looking toward the northeast gave 
them the whole of Rome, the Alban and 
Sabine mountains, and a flood of light. 
They would have a full view of the sun- 
rise, too ; and up to ten o’clock three 
oblique lines of sunshine moved across their 
floor. 

This room was both studio and salon. 
Mimi had her work-table at one window, the 
dining-table stood before another, and Carl’s 
easel was set by the third. They did every- 
thing there but cook and sleep, and the place 
was charming, if bare. Little by little they 
were covering the rough walls with pictures 
of all sorts, cut from illustrated papers and 
magazines, and at intervals Carl painted a 
slender panel of deep blue, or dull gold, or 
soft green. His few artistic properties were 
scattered about. There was a screen or two, 
a carved chair, and a beautiful oaken chest, 
very old and carved in palm-leaves. A 


153 


From the Garden of a Friend. 

graceful wicker basket hung over this chest, 
against one of Carl’s blue panels. Mimi 
cherished this basket, for it had been sent to 
her on her wedding-day, full of white camel- 
lias and blue violets. 

Besides the apartment, they had also a 
garden, only one story below, against the 
hillside. A little flight of stairs led to it 
from the studio. In this garden they had 
found a treasure, — a young mandarin orange- 
tree in the first year of its blooming. It was 
so white with blossoms that it seemed to be 
fainting under the weight of them. Mimi 
carefully pinched them all off but one. 

The tree isn’t strong enough to bear,” 
she said, “ and these blossoms will perfume 
the studio.” She carried them up in her 
apron, and poured the sweet white drift into 
her wicker basket on the wall. 

The one blossom she had spared faded off 
in time, and left a green bullet. The bullet 
grew, and became a ball two inches in diam- 
eter. How they watched that little one, 
having no child of their own ! How they 
guarded it from every possible harm ! It 
was shielded from the wind, covered from 
hail and heavy rain ; and wo to the spider 
which should spin its web there, or the lizard 


154 


Autumn Leaves. 


led by curiosity to whisk up the large brown 
vase that held their treasure ! 

The tree grew in the light of their eyes as 
well as in the sunshine, and seemed to take 
pride in its own achievements, holding out 
the laden twig as who should say, Do you 
see this child of mine ? I also have produced 
an orange, O my sisters multitudinous of 
Sorrento and Seville ! ” 

The mandarin turned yellow gradually. 
At Christmas there were only a tiny cloud 
and a thread of green. But Mimi was im- 
patient. When Carl sat down to his Christ- 
mas dinner, there lay upon his napkin a 
fragrant golden ball, with a pointed green 
leaf standing out at either side, wing-like, as 
if the thing had flown there. 

“ If it turns out to be dry or sour, I shall feel 
betrayed,” Mimi said. “ I couldn’t wait any 
longer to know. Let’s try it before we eat.” 

Carl gave the fruit a scientific pinch, as a 
cat takes her kittens up by the neck. “ It 
will at least be juicy,” he said. “ The skin 
doesn’t come off too easily.” 

The orange was carefully divided, as an 
orange ought to be, according to the manner 
of its putting together, and Carl leaned 
across the table and put one section between 


From the Garden of a Friend. 155 

the two rows of pearly teeth his wife opened 
to receive it. Then, while she waited with 
immovable jaws and lips drawn back, a 
second section disappeared under his blonde 
mustache. Looking anxiously into each 
other’s faces, they closed their teeth at the 
same instant, like two small wine-presses ; 
and at the same instant a sparkling satisfac- 
tion foamed up into the eyes of both. The 
mandarin was a success ! 

“ U-u-m-m-m ! ” growled Mimi, inarticu- 
lately and low, like a cat over a mouse. It 
is the king of mandarins 1 ” she cried, when 
her tongue was free. It is the Emperor of 
China himself. How can we wait a whole 
year for another crop ! ” 

They had to wait, however; and when 
blossom-time came round again, they left 
thirty of the finest flowers, the tree having 
grown stout and matronly. At Christmas 
thirty globes of pure gold hung amid the 
dark green foliage. 

“ I have exchanged fifteen of them for a 
chicken,” Mimi said to her husband on the 
morning of December 24th. “You know, 
Carl, we can afford neither to eat nor to give 
them away, after the extra expenses we have 
had.” 


Autumn Leaves. 


156 

These extra expenses were for a dress coat 
and a silk dress with a train, or as Mimi 
called them for short, a rondine and a stras- 
cico. The young people had some fine 
friends, who did not choose that they should 
remain in obscurity, and they were invited 
out occasionally. Aside from the pleasure 
they found in society, they knew that it 
might help Carl in his art to meet such 
people ; and therefore, with tremulous hearts, 
they had ventured not only to spend their 
little savings, but to incur a small debt, in 
order to make themselves presentable. Nor 
was this all. They had still further dimin- 
ished their present means by keeping back 
one of Carl’s pictures from the dealer, and 
setting it in the bookseller’s window instead. 

This adventurous picture was nothing less 
than a portrait of their mandarin orange-tree 
as it had been the year before. It was the 
same, yet not the same. It was the tree as 
love saw it. 

There was the high, dark gray wall, with 
an undulating line of green Janiculum above 
it, and above that a band of pure azure. 
Below, on a jagged table of ancient masonry 
that had once been a wall, stood the large 
brown vase. The slender, supple tree leaned 


From the Garden of a Friend, 157 

all one way toward the single orange that 
hung heavily at the tip of its foremost twig, 
and all the leaves seemed to be twisting their 
stems about in order to see it. There were 
still a few faint green lines upon its yellow 
ripeness; and, studying, one might see that 
they hinted forth the picture’s name, — II 
Primogenito. In the wall above was set a 
torn umbrella, with bunches of long grass 
carefully stopping the holes. A blue cup 
full of water stood beside the vase, and a 
painter’s brush, still tinged with blue, was 
stuck, handle down, where it had loosened 
the earth about the tree. Around the vase, 
making a half circle from the wall, was a 
rough protective barrier, composed of frag- 
ments of antique sculpture, heads, arms, 
hands, half-seen faces, a shoulder pushing 
out, a strip of egg-molding as white as milk, 
a bit of stone-fluting, the curling tip of an 
acanthus leaf. Lastly, the picture was 
flooded with sunshine. 

If Carl was ever to be famous, it would be 
for painting sunshine. 

They had hopes of this picture, and of 
their new friends. Only the week before, at 
a musicale given by the Signora Cremona, 
they had made the acquaintance of the 


Autumn Leaves. 


158 

famous English poetess, Madama Landon, 
and the great lady had praised one of Carl’s 
pictures which she had seen at the house of 
a friend. Who knew but she might wish to 
see others, to buy one, or at least to praise 
them to those who might buy ! 

The Primogenito unsold, then, Mimi had 
exchanged half of her oranges for their 
Christmas roast. “ And I have been think- 
ing, Carl,” she said, that we might send the 
other half to the Cremonas as an acknowl- 
edgment of their kindness to us. We have 
dined there twice, and there was the musi- 
cale. We Could send them in my basket, 
and they will make a very pretty show.” 

They went to work at once. The basket 
was lined with moss, and over that Mimi laid 
a little open-wrought napkin, laboriously 
made by her own fingers by drawing threads 
out of linen. Each mandarin was cut with a 
stem and a leaf or two, and artistically placed. 

How beautiful!” sighed Mimi. And 
there are just enough. One more would be 
a bump, and one less a dent.” 

A note was written on their last sheet of 
fine paper ; the basket was covered with white 
tissue-paper, and tied with blue ribbons pre- 
served from their wedding presents. 


From the Garden of a Friend, 159 

When Carl went out with the basket, Mimi 
followed him to the stairs, and looked after 
him with tears in her eyes. 

It’s like sending one’s own children out 
into the world,” she thought. “ Dear little 
creatures ! They have never had anything 
but love and praising here.” 

And so the basket of mandarins began its 
travels ; its grand tour, in fact. 

It reached the Signora Cremona in safety. 

How pretty ! ” said the lady. But we 
have fruit for to-day, and to-morrow we dine 
out. I will send the basket to Mrs. James, 
with our regrets for her breakfast to-morrow.” 

A note was written. The Signora Cre- 
mona was so sorry that a previous engage- 
ment would prevent their breakfasting with 
Mrs. James the next day, and begged her to 
accept a basket of mandarin oranges, which 
she thought would be fine, as they were from 
a friend’s garden. 

Mrs. James and her sister were just having 
their after-breakfast coffee and cigarettes 
when the present was brought in. 

“ The Cremonas cannot come,” Mrs. James 
said, reading the note. ‘'And see what a 
lovely basket of mandarins ! If we had not 
bought and settled everything for to-morrow, 


i6o Autumn Leaves. 

I would set this in the middle of the table, 
just as it is. Oh ! I’ll tell you what we can 
do, — send it with a note to Monsignore Ap- 
petitoso. He might hear of our breakfast, 
you know, and feel slighted. Poor soul ! I 
shouldn’t want to offend him. He is very 
useful.” 

The note was written, the blue ribbons 
were tied for the third time, and the young 
tourists set out anew on their travels. 

Monsignore Appetitoso was a juhilato a 
mezza paga ; that is, having passed a certain 
age, he was dispensed from the duties of his 
office with a pension of half its salary. Be- 
sides this, the pay being small, the Pope had 
assigned him a free apartment in the can- 
onicate of Santa Veronica del Fazzoletto, a 
palace that was nearly vacant, the canons 
preferring to reside outside. Here the old 
gentleman lived very comfortably, though 
without luxury ; going out to dinner when he 
was invited, getting an afternoon cup of tea 
and slice of cake in some lady’s drawing-room 
now and then, and dreaming over the happy 
days, long past, when he was delegato^ and 
rounded his dinner off with ices, candies, and 
vin santOy instead of roasted chestnuts and a 
biscuit. 


From the Garden of a Friend. i6i 

Monsignore dined at one o’clock, and was 
just eating a biscottino with his glass of Mar- 
sala, after the soup, boiled beef and greens, 
stewed pigeons and roasted chestnuts, which 
had formed the repast, when Mrs. James’s 
present arrived. 

(We make haste to add, lest scrupulous 
souls should be scandalized at a priest’s eat- 
ing meat on a vigil, that Monsignore was dis- 
pensed from both fasting and abstinence on 
account of his sixty-eight years and a disease 
of the stomach.) 

The basket was uncovered with eagerness, 
and, settling himself more comfortably in his 
chair. Monsignore prepared to devour its 
whole contents then and there. But as he 
smilingly lifted off the topmost orange, a 
thought arrested him. 

He had just heard — the news came in with 
the roasted chestnuts — that the rector of the 
College of Converted Zulus had been taken 
seriously ill that morning, and therefore could 
not have the honor of dining with Cardinal 
Inghilterra the next evening. 

Now Monsignore had felt hurt at not re- 
ceiving an invitation to this dinner. He 
loved the cardinal as only a poor gourmet 
can love a rich one, and had served him to 

II 


i 62 


Autwnn Leaves, 


the extent of his power. Who knows, he 
thought, but I may be asked to fill the rec- 
tor’s place ? There was every probability of 
it, if only that pushing Monsignore Barili did 
not thrust himself in. Would not the cardi- 
nal be touched by the amiable piety of a 
man who should send him a basket of fruit 
after having been excluded from his dinner- 
table? He, Mon signore, was not expected 
to know anything about the rector of the 
Zulus’ opportune seizure, or at least not so 
quickly. 

He put the orange carefully back into its 
place, and, after ringing his bell, tied the blue 
ribbons again, — their fourth tying, as the 
creases in them began to hint. 

“ Giacomo,” he said, when his man ap- 
peared, “ run as fast as you can with this to 
Cardinal Inghilterra, and ask permission to see 
him. Make the proper compliments, and 
try and find out if Monsignore Barili has been 
there to-day.” 

Cardinal Inghilterra lunched when Mon- 
signore dined, and he was still at table 
when Giacomo was graciously permitted to 
present himself. Poor Monsignore was use- 
ful to others beside Mrs. James, and the 
cardinal used him a good deal, and treated 


From the Garden of a Friend. 163 

him with good-natured, condescending fami- 
liarity. 

He sat in a room like a green tent, with a 
window full of sunshine and a garden behind 
him. Before him on the table was a cup of 
coffee, into which he was just dropping a 
lump of sugar from the tips of his white 
dimpled fingers. At his right hand was a 
liquor stand, and a gilded glass rosily full of 
“ Perfetto Amore,'’ one of the new Turin 
liquors that are trying to oust French ones 
from the market. An open note, the ago- 
nized regrets of the rector of the Zulus, lay at 
his left hand. 

As Giacomo entered, and received a nod 
of recognition and a sign to wait, the cardi- 
nal was listening to his major-domo, who, 
full of reverential anxiety, was communicat- 
ing to his Eminence the possibility that fish 
might not be forthcoming for to-morrow’s 
dinner. A storm had driven back the fishers 
of the west coast the night before, and the 
wind there was still contrary. There was not 
even a minnow in the market to-day ; and the 
dealers had promised more than they ex- 
pected to receive. The cook had prayed, 
bribed, and threatened ; but the event still 
remained doubtful. 


164 


Autumn Leaves, 


The cardinal listened with tranquillity, sip- 
ping his coffee. He did not believe in im- 
possibilities — for himself. 

‘‘There is a telegraph in Rome,” he re- 
marked, as if communicating an item of news. 
“ And there is ” — he sipped his coffee — “ a 
telegraph at Civita Vecchia ” — another sip — 
“ and at Porto d’Anzio ” — sip — “ and at An- 
cona ” — sip — “ and at various other sea, and 
therefore fish, ports around the coast of 
Italy ; ” and he finished his coffee, and set 
the cup aside. 

“ Certainly, Eminenza ! ” the man struck 
in. “ But I could not incur the expense 
without a special permission. If I send three 
telegrams to make sure of one, I may have 
to pay for three baskets of fishes ; and be- 
sides, the price ” — 

“You can discuss that with the cook,” in- 
terrupted his master, and, waving him away, 
beckoned Giacomo to advance. 

“ Monsignore is very good,” he said, after 
listening to the man’s errand. “Tell him 
that I am infinitely obliged. And” — he 
hesitated, and glanced at the letter beside 
him. He saw through Monsignore’s little 
pious ruse perfectly ; but, as we have said, he 
was good-natured. “ Wait in the anteroom 


From the Garden of a Friend, 165 

a moment/’ he added. “ See if Antonio is 
there, and send him to me.” 

Giacomo bowed himself out backward, 
and Antonio bowed himself in forward. He 
was a man of such a villainous solemnity of 
aspect that, had one encountered him in 
heaven even, one would have recognized him 
as the confidential servant of a priest. Face 
cleanly shaven, eyes downcast, mouth firmly 
closed, neck advanced as if to lay its head on 
the block (for virtue’s sake, sintende\ and 
what mocking young Italy calls an expres- 
sion of Gesu mio made Antonio one of the 
cream of his kind. 

“ Cover these mandarins with the best 
roses that you can find in the garden,” the 
cardinal said, “ and take them with my com- 
pliments to the Signora Landon. Throw 
away the wraps ; they are soiled. And you 
need not let Giacomo see you.” 

Exit Antonio in funereal silence. 

About the same time two ladies were ex- 
amining a picture set up frameless on a table 
in a little salon in Hotel Bristol. 

Isn’t it charming?” said one of them. 
“ I bought it this morning, and I am going 
to send it home to Tom. I can’t keep it for 
myself, because the sunshine of it freckles 


i66 


Autumn Leaves. 


me. Tom will be delighted with it, it is so 
Italian. I know the artist. He and his 
wife were at La Cremona’s musicale last 
week. Such a nice little couple ! — like two 
birds.” 

Enter Antonio. 

“ Oh ! was it you, Antonio ? ” said the 
lady, turning. “ I thought it was my shoe- 
maker. How is his Eminence?” 

Antonio, with the air of taking his last 
leave of his dearest friend, delivered his mes- 
sage. 

“ How perfectly lovely ! ” was the response. 
“ Will you come and look at these mandarins, 
Lady Mary ? See how well they are ar- 
ranged ! Mandarini smothered in roses ! 
They need not blush before strawberries and 
cream. It is a poem. Eminenza’s fruit is 
worthy to have grown on my painted orange- 
tree. Stay a moment, Antonio, while I 
write my thanks.” 

The quill went scrawling over a sheet of 
cream-colored paper, that had initials and a 
crest occupying all the left side ; a prompt 
white hand slapped the blotting-book over 
those large characters, folded, inclosed, and 
directed the note, and sealed it with a ring 
worn on the writer’s thumb. 


From the Garden of a Friend. 167 

Antonio received this missive as though it 
were his death-warrant, but with a sudden 
convulsion of face as he felt the generous 
breadth of a five-franc piece under it. He 
had nearly smiled. 

“ The cardinal has such good taste ! ” the 
poetess said, smilingly contemplating his 
gift, when Antonio had faded away. “ But 
unfortunately, I never eat oranges. They 
make me bilious. Oh ! I know what I will 
do. I can send them to the artist who 
painted that picture. It will be a pleasant 
way of announcing to him that his picture is 
sold. The bookseller told me that he had 
already been in this morning to see if any 
one had looked at it, and seemed very sad. 
Jeannette can carry the basket over with a 
note to-morrow morning. There is no time 
this afternoon. Will you please touch the 
bell-knob at your elbow, Mary ? ” 

A servant appeared. 

“ Bring me a vase with water for these 
roses,” Mrs. Landon said. ''And send my 
maid to me.” 

The next day Mimi and Carl had their 
dinner at noon. It was a poorer dinner than 
they had ever before eaten on a festa day, 
for there was nothing to follow their chicken 


Autumn Leaves. 


1 68 

but four soldi worth of cheese and their cof- 
fee. To be sure, there isn’t much sense in 
eating cheese when you have no fruit ; but, 
as Mimi said, their hearts had been so full 
of the mandarins that may be their stomachs 
might have felt the influence. Besides, 
cheese gives a certain air. 

Their cheerfulness was a little forced to-day. 
Carl had been painting since daybreak, and 
was tired, and his wife was not feeling 
well. 

“ Did you say that this was a chicken ! 
he asked, probing the fowl before him. 

“ Why, yes, dear, and a nice plump one, 
too,” replied Mimi, trying to make the best 
of everything. “ Didn’t I pay fifteen golden 
mandarins fresh from the mint for it ? Did 
you think that it was a goose ? ” 

“No,” said Carl, laboriously cutting, “I 
didn’t think that it Avas a goose ; but — err — 
seems to me that it has — err — a good deal of 
— err — character for a chicken.” 

“You don’t mean to say that it’s tough ! ” 
Mimi faltered, trying to keep back the tears 
that made a sudden rush for her eyes. 

Carl’s reply was checked by the sound of 
their door-bell, sharply rung. 

“A beggar!” said Mimi, and started up 


From the Garden of a Friend. 169 

hastily, glad to hide her face, and snatching 
a piece of bread as she went. 

“ I oughtn’t to have let her know that it is 
tough, poor Mimi ! ” thought Carl. 

In two minutes she came back radiant 
See ! a present and a note from Madama 
Landon ! ” she cried, holding out a basket 
swathed in tissue-paper, and elaborately tied 
with a silken cord. “ Her maid brought it. 
It is fruit, as sure as you live. God is good ! 
How nice it is to be remembered, and have 
something come in, — ^just in the nick of time, 
too ! That dear lady ! I knew she had a 
good heart, she is so bright-eyed and has so 
much color. She blushes if she stirs. I al- 
ways notice — Why, Carl, the handle of this 
basket is just like ours ! ” 

Of course there are plenty in the world 
like it,” remarked Carl, watching with great 
interest the careful undoing of the blue, 
softly twisted cords. 

“ It is heavenly to get just such a one 
back,” said Mimi, picking carefully, with an 
impatient tremor, at the knots. “ It makes 
this seem a sort of second wedding-day, 
doesn’t it, dear ? ” 

The last cover off, the two stared for one 
moment in silence at their gift, then at each 


Autumn Leaves. 


170 

other, then at their gift again. Their faces 
had grown very blank. Then Mimi, with a 
finger and thumb, lifted out by the stem 
one mandarin after another, setting them 
in a row on the table. There were fif- 
teen. 

“ I didn’t need this to prove it,” she said 
in a hushed voice, picking the napkin out of 
the basket. I know the looks of those 
mandarins as well as I know yours. I could 
go out now and set each one on its own twig 
on the tree.” 

Another blank silence ; then Mimi burst 
into a laugh. Don’t you see, Carl ? La 
Cremona must have sent them to her, they 
were so pretty ; and she has sent them to us, 
without ever suspecting. Isn’t it comical, 
and delightful ? Oh, little prodigals, wel- 
come home again ! ” 

They bethought themselves to read the 
note. The lady had written : — 

Dear Signor Petersen, — Allow me to 
offer you some mandarins which are worthy 
to have grown on your own tree, which, by 
the way, is now my tree. I have bought 
your Primogenito, and am so much pleased 
with it that I would like to have a compan- 
ion picture, when you have time to favor me 


From the Garden of a Friend. 17 1 

with one. With compliments to your charm- 
ing wife, and a buona festa to both. 

Yours sincerely, Clare Landon. 

P. S. — I send you the basket just as it was 
sent to me by a cardinal. C. L. 

“ A cardinal ! ” 

No matter! Let the mystery go, since it 
had brought a miracle of joy. Mimi was 
weeping with delight. 

“ Give me the two very largest,” she said, 
^*and I will carry them down to those two 
children on the ground floor. How wicked 
I have been to hate them, even if they do 
dirty the stairs and throw stones at me 1 I 
will kiss them, Carl, since I cannot kiss God ! ” 

“ We mustn't utter the word mandarins to 
La Cremona,” Carl said. 

But the very next time he met the Signora 
Cremona she thanked him with graceful cor- 
diality for his present. “ They were deli- 
cious,” she said. 

Carl bowed with perfect gravity. 

And then he saw her blush slightly, as she 
hastened away from him to meet her friend, 
Mrs. James, who was coming across from the 
Spanish steps to speak to her. 

I want to thank you for that lovely 


172 


Autumn Leaves, 


fruit,” Mrs. James said, with effusion. ‘‘It 
was the finest I have had this year ; so fresh, 
and honey-sweet ! ” 

The lady had excellent authority for her 
praises ; for Monsignore Appetitoso had 
called on her that very morning to make his 
compliments on her gift. “Your mandarins 
arrived just in time for my dinner,” he said, 
smacking his lips, as if he still had the taste 
of them in his mouth. 

Mrs. James professed herself honored in 
having been allowed to contribute to Mon- 
signore’s Christmas dinner. “ I thought the 
mandarins would be fine,” she said. “ They 
were sent me from the garden of a friend.” 

“ Oh ! it was the day before. I dined with 
his Eminence Cardinal Inghilterra, last even- 
ing,” Monsignore replied complacently, “and 
I thought that you might like to see the 
menu'^' drawing a carefully folded paper from 
his pocket, and a white satin ribbon from 
the paper. 

With a simultaneous “ Oh !” Mrs. James 
and her sister seized the dainty gold-lettered 
trifle, and bumped their heads together in the 
eagerness with which they bent over it to 
see what a cardinal would give his friends 
for dinner. 


From the Gardeit of a Friend. 173 

I hope that your Eminence enjoyed 
the little basket of fruit I took the liberty 
to send yesterday,” Monsignore had said 
the evening before, in a momentary pause 
in the talk about the table. It was 
from a friend’s garden, and I thought it 
choice.” 

It was excellent ! ” was the gracious an- 
swer. I have never eaten better.” 

And here the odor of truffles stole into 
Monsignore’s nostrils from a dish waiting at 
his left elbow. Oh, how he loved that man 
sitting opposite him, glorious in scarlet and 
diamonds, and still more glorious as the dis- 
penser of such bounties ! His Eminence 
would have been proclaimed Pope on the 
instant, if Monsignore Appetitoso had had 
the power. 

“ Eminence,” said Mrs. Landon, the first 
time he visited her after Christmas, “ I knew, 
of course, that you are intimate with the 
saints ; but I was not aware that the pagan 
divinities also serve you. You must be on 
the best of terms with the Hesperides. No- 
where but in their orchards could have been 
mingled the fire and honey of your delicious 
mandarins.” 

His Eminence bowed smilingly. 


174 


Autumn Leaves. 


“I am happy to know that you found 
them to your taste,” he said, in his superb, 
deliberate way. They were, in fact, from — 
err — the garden of a friend.” 


A Soldier’s Daughter, 


175 


A SOLDIER’S DAUGHTER. 

You laud your soldier-hero with the golden 
tongue of fame 

Because he wears a coronet, and bears a 
storied name. 

He is neither worse, nor better, that his an- 
cestors were earls. 

He were neither worse nor better though 
they had been naught but churls. 

Ah ! how the years roll backward, like a gate 
that opens wide ! 

I can see our farm and homestead on a 
smooth pine-crowned hillside; 

A farm won from the wildwood by the 
heavy toil of men. 

Of honest working women and of honest 
working men. 

The years divide — they vanish into mists of 
joy, or pain. 

Father, mother, sister, brother, — I can see 
them all again ! 

I can smell the blossomed clover, see the 
orchard’s laden boughs. 

Hear the creaking of the well-pole and the 
lowing of the cows ; 


176 Autumn Leaves. 

See the bare trees of December ; see the win- 
try burden lift, 

And the blushing of the Mayflowers beside 
the melting drift. 

I can feel the Sabbath stillness when the day 
of rest came round. 

The very grass then seemed to whisper 
“ Hush ! ” along the ground. 

I see my father at his work, tall, sober, in 
his hair 

A few gray threads, his forehead prematurely 
lined by care. 

A man of sterling common sense and some- 
what slow to speak. 

He was helpful to the needy, he was patient 
with the weak. 

He was over-fond of epigrams, wise sayings, 
new and old. 

If you brought him a new proverb ’twas as 
though you gave him gold. 

He wrote them in a book with all his credit 
and his debt. 

His bought and sold of land and stock, his 
loss and profit net. 

There, filling every little space, criss-cross and 
round-about, 


A Soldier^ s Daughter. 177 

An arabesque of chosen words of gold ran in 
and out. 

The sales of chickens and of eggs, the winter 
coat he bought, 

Were wreathed about with poesy and 
gemmed about with thought ; 

And cheek-by-jowl with turnips, beans, corn, 
skins, cord-wood and game. 

Sparkled the wit of the salon, the martyr's 
word of flame. 

For Chinese, Celts and Saxons, and Hebrews 
Turks and Huns, 

The souls that lived in Arctic snows, or 
under tropic suns. 

All tribes of earth’s humanity, however far 
away. 

To that New England family had each its 
word to say. 

My mother was — my mother ! In a halo now 
she stands, 

A sense of loving heart anear, a sense of help- 
ing hands. 

Were her dear eyes azure-tinted ? Was there 
sunshine in her hair ? 

I can only know a tender wing-like hovering 
everywhere, 

Half a brightness, half a shadow, where a 
lulling song is heard. 

12 


178 Autumn Leaves, 

And underneath its shielding I was like a 
nested bird. 

There was Jamie, one-and-twenty, mother’s 
first born, pride and pet. 

And Rose, the little four-year-old, only a bud 
as yet. 

It was early in the sixties, and an over-hang- 
ing pall 

Of threatening war was chilling us, my father 
most of all. 

For sacred next to God and home he held 
his native land. 

And the stern duty to defend the right with 
word and hand. 

But, yet, the harshest word he said was, 
“ Whether black or white. 

To trade in human flesh and blood, I hold it 
isn’t right. 

Some peaceful way to stop the sin may yet 
be found, I trust ; 

But we will face the music now, and fight, if 
fight we must.” 

The draft was called, and Jamie’s name came 
out the very first. 

My mother sobbed on hearing it as though 
her heart would burst. 


A Soldier^ s Daughter. 179 

But father said : “ The boy shall stay and 
work the farm for me. 

I’m not afraid but he can make both ends 
meet for you three. 

The work a soldier has to do requires a 
stronger man, 

And I can bear the strain of it better than 
Jamie can.” 

But mother said he said to her: “ You keep 
the boy from sin. 

An army isn’t just the school to put a young- 
ster in.” 

When we all joined imploring him that he 
would buy release, 

He only answered gently : “ Hush ! and let 
me go in peace. 

The path is straight before me, though the 
end thereof is dim. 

And the voices calling me are like the sing- 
ing of a hymn.” 


We tried to keep our courage up. When the 
last night was there, 

’Twas Sunday — and we gathered for a chap- 
ter and a prayer — 

It was our custom — father read out in a 
solemn way 


i8o 


Autum7i Leaves, 


The Psalm, The Lord my shepherd is, and we 
knelt down to pray. 

Then some one breathed a long, deep sigh ; 
and then a sob was heard. 

And we all broke down together and cried, 
without a word, 

A good ten minutes ; and the only prayer we 
heard was when 

My father’s quivering voice said low : ‘‘For 
Christ’s dear sake. Amen.” 

There were letters. But my father did not 
write the last that came. 

It gave us each a message. It blessed us 
each by name. 

His words of love, his solemn charge, his 
soothing of our fears — 

The paper where the dear nurse wrote was 
blistered with her tears. 

He died, she wrote, serenely, making not the 
least complaint. 

Enduring pangs of flesh and soul with the 
patience of a saint. 

It was anguish — with a soothing ; sorrow — 
but comfort, too ; 

Like the falling of a thunderbolt in the fall- 
ing of the dew. 


A Soldier's Daughter, i8i 

He was nothing but a private, and the world 
forgets his name, 

He only did his duty, and for neither gold 
nor fame. 

But for us who knew his loyal soul, all cour- 
age, love and trust, 

’Twas a throne without a monarch — ’twas an 
empire in the dust ! 

My martyred father! Your own child your 
hidden glory sings : 

The blood you shed for justice was as purple 
as a king’s I 

And fast I hold the lesson that your life has 
taught to me : 

Too proud to wear a coronet that one may 
truly be 

Who claims as ancestors — whate’er has been 
their mode of toil, 

An artisan’s, a teacher’s, or a tiller of the 
soil. 

The hand that wields the warrior’s sword, 
or guides the scholar’s pen — 

A line of honest women and a line of honest 
men ! 


i 82 


Autumn Leaves, 


HIS HONOR’S DAUGHTER. 

Judge Fanshawe’s house and Miss Hes- 
ter Campbell’s stood side by side on Pearl 
avenue, but with a difference. The Judge’s 
mansion soared upward, like Uhland’s Castle 
by the Sea, and had a lofty portico with fluted 
pillars and seven stone steps to the sidewalk, 
and plate-glass windows of the most impos- 
ing dimensions. But Miss Hester’s domicile 
was narrow, flat-faced, two-storied, with one 
timid little step advancing from the street- 
door, and had an air of not wishing to in- 
trude, and of being on the point of getting 
itself out of the way, if only people wouldn’t 
look. 

** They seem resolved that I shall go,” the 
consumptive little spinster sighed. “ I am 
offered mints of money for my estate ; and, 
when I refuse, am elbowed by brown stone, 
clawed at by iron railings, and glared at by 
great windows, till I feel like little Red Rid- 
ing-Hood before the wolf, and expect every 
moment to see a pair of wide jaws open, and 
eat me up quite. The very horses paw at my 
sidewalk when they are drawn up in front of 


His Honoris Daughter, 183 

it, and the coachmen say things to each other, 
and point at me with their thumbs. (I won- 
der why it seems more ignominious to be 
pointed at with the thumb than in any other 
way ?) But transplanting would kill me, 
laddie. I must live out my little time here 
in my childhood’s home. When I am gone, 
you can do as you please.” 

The person addressed as “ laddie ” was a 
stalwart young man of twenty-seven years at 
least, with a fine, spirited face, blue eyes that 
saved his mouth a good deal of talking, and 
thick tawny hair that fell into separate locks 
like plumes — Lieutenant Donald Campbell, 
Miss Hester’s cousin and heir. 

Seeing this gentleman look at her with a 
Scotch mist in his eyes, the little lady made 
haste to brighten up, and add, with a smile. 
And what should I do without that pretty 
creature to look at ? ” 

The soldier blushed faintly all over his 
face ; his mouth, that had been compressed, 
melted with something sweeter than a smile, 
and he turned his eyes quickly away and 
looked out the window, to hide the sudden 
brightness in them. 

It was an October gloaming, and as he 
faced the window. Lieutenant Campbell 


184 


Autumn Leaves. 


looked across the narrow side-street that 
separated them from the next house, and saw 
a charming group, framed in a living sculpt- 
ure of wind-tossed woodbine, surrounding the 
library window opposite. A shaded lamp 
hung from the chandelier, and threw a circle 
of brilliant light into the center of the room. 
In the midst of that light, painted, as it were, 
in strong relief, like one of those old pictures 
we see on a background of gold, sat Judge 
Fanshawe and his daughter, a slim, bright 
girl of nineteen, both reading from the same 
book. Rose had drawn a tabouret close to 
her father’s side, and leaned on the arm of 
his chair, turning the leaves as they read, and 
his hand rested on her shoulder. The same 
beam of light that made his forehead look 
marble-white, and glimmered on his eye- 
glasses, slipped lower, dropped a crinkled 
gilding in her dark hair, and showed her 
brow, fair as a lily. The dark blue of her 
dress lay soft, fold on fold, against the red of 
his dressing-gown, which seemed to have 
stained her blooming cheeks. Miss Hester 
had, with good reason, called Rose Fanshawe 
“ that pretty creature.” 

The book they read must have been amus- 
ing, for all the time a smile played around 


His Honor’s Daughter, 185 

the Judge’s lips, and now and then Rose 
glanced in his face and laughed. 

As the young man gazed lingeringly at 
them, the readers both looked up, then rose 
to meet a visitor who came toward them 
from the shadows surrounding their golden 
medallion. 

Lieutenant Campbell pulled the curtain 
down with a snap, then lighted the gas and 
drew his cousin’s chair round before the fire, 
standing behind her a moment, leaning on 
the chair-back, while she looked uneasily into 
the transparent violet flicker in the grate. 
Then he came forward to the chimney-corner, 
and stood there, very erect, with his hands 
behind him. Hester,” he said, I am not 
yet thirty years of age ; but I am a very old- 
fashioned fellow.” 

There was no apparent reason why the 
young man should find this a very irritating 
fact, but his eyes flashed as he spoke. “ I 
am so old-fashioned as to hate a swindler, 
and to be angry when I see respectable peo- 
ple welcome him ; ” he went on, excited- 
ly. Do you know how that fellow got 
rich ? ” 

Miss Hester looked up wistfully into her 
cousin’s face, knowing full well the real cause 


i86 


Autumn Leaves* 


of his anger. Mr. Francis Grey, you mean ?” 
she asked. “ Is he rich ? ” 

‘‘ Rich ? he is a Midas, ears and all. I know 
his history. Five years ago his father died 
and left him with expensive tastes, no pro- 
fession, and ten thousand dollars — imminent 
beggary, of course, for a man like him. What 
to do ? His eye fell upon Blentdavir, the 
arch-nurse of stocks : 

“ ‘ And now they go up, up, up. 

And now they go down, down, downy.’ 

“ Blentdavir was a relative, and felt obliged 
to give him a lift. He gave it in the way of 
a whisper in Grey’s ear, ‘ When stock gets 
down to 23, buy all you can get.’ Verbiim 
sat sapienti. The fellow took heart, and set 
himself to watch and wait. Before long it 
was hinted that Blentdavir’s stock was getting 
a little weak. Then it began to sink slowly. 
Do you know what that means, Hester? 
Can you fancy how the news was received by 
hundreds and thousands who had invested 
their little all there ? Fancy the widows, the 
orphans, the overworked fathers of families, 
the teachers, shop-girls, factory-girls, sewing- 
girls — all the toiling crowd who had stinted 
themselves in the present for the sake of 


His Honoris Daughter. 


187 


laying away something against a rainy day. 
You may be sure that they had pale faces 
and wild eyes and heavy hearts as that stock 
came down. ‘ Hold on/ Blentdavir said ; ‘ it 
must come up again.’ I suppose some of 
’em did hold on as long as they could, or 
dared ; but finally there was a panic. The 
poor wretches rushed to sell, and save at least 
a little, and Mr. Francis Grey bought up all 
that he could get, and wished for more. A 
few of the initiated snapped up the rest. 
Then there was a pause. Blentdavir wept 
with one eye, and with the other exchanged 
a wink with his master of the cloven 
foot. 

“ Probably Grey wasn’t quite easy for a 
while. But in the fulness of time it was 
perceived that the stock, having reached its 
zero, was creeping up again by quarter cents 
and half cents, a step and a halt, a step and 
a halt. Then the steps grew firmer, by cents 
and fives. You know how such things go. 
‘ I told you so ! ’ Blentdavir said to the 
hungry ones, rubbing his hands. They didn’t 
rub their hands. The mercury was out of 
their thermometers, and the bubbles 
burst. 

“ Now there was a dignified percentage ; 


i88 


Autumn Leaves. 


then a sudden rise to somewhere among the 
nineties. Grey sold out, and found himself 
the owner of a decent fortune. But the 
gambling spirit was up in him. He specu- 
lated in this and that — not honestly, but tak- 
ing advantage of men’s necessities — and 
everything he touched turned to gold for him. 
He is rich, and growing richer, and he bids 
fair to become a power in the land. Business 
men look at him with wonder; and, blinded 
by his success, forget how it was won. But, 
Hester, I call him a swindler ! ” 

While finishing his story, Donald Camp- 
bell had come out of his corner and walked 
up and down the room two or three times. 
He took another turn in silence, then came 
back to lean on the mantelpiece. 

I am a wretch,” he said, trying to laugh 
off his excitement. “ I have distressed you. 
But see, now ! I am as mild as a May morn- 
ing.” 

She smiled tenderly on him — her sole re- 
maining tie to earth. She would have been 
lonely indeed, lacking Donald. “ Keep your 
May-morning temper, laddie,” she said. Let 
no man rob you of that, though he were a 
thousand times a swindler.” 

He looked at her kindly. 


His Honor's Daughter. 189 

Besides,” she added, dropping her glance 
to the fire again, I don’t believe that he can 
rob you of anything which is necessary to 
your happiness.” 

Miss Campbell was, as has been said, an 
invalid. She saw nothing of the world ex- 
cept what was visible through her windows ; 
and one of her chief pleasures was to watch 
Rose Fanshawe. Rose was her widowed 
father’s only child, and the supreme mistress 
of his house and heart. To see her trip down 
the steps for drive, or promenade, or, more 
soberly on Sundays, walk off to church with 
her father ; to see her preside at table, or 
receive company with that naive ^ blushing 
assumption of dignity ; to note the little 
housewifely airs she took on herself ; to see 
her, when dressed for party, or opera, parade 
up and down the long parlor to display her 
toilet to her father and the servants whose 
smiling faces looked in at the door — all this 
was very pleasant for the lonely little woman 
across the way. It was pleasant to see Miss 
Rose, even in her less sunny moods, when 
some spoke had slipped into the house- 
hold machinery, perhaps when the careless 
chamber-girl had left the Judge’s pillows an 


190 


Autumn Leaves. 


inch awry, or forgotten a crumpled towel, or 
put his tooth-brush wrong end up. 

Judge Fanshawe was called a stern man ; 
but he did not appear to be ungrateful for 
this fond and jealous care. To be sure of 
that, one had but to see him come home in 
the afternoon, note how his step quickened 
as he neared his own house, and how his face 
brightened as he glanced eagerly up at the 
windows. Then one could see him smile 
toward the door, and put the latch-key back 
into his pocket ; see a slippered foot and the 
hem of a dress beyond the pillars of the ves- 
tibules, and, perhaps, hear some such greet- 
ing as this called out in a clear, girlish voice. 

Welcome home, dear ! And how does your 
honor do ? ’’ 

A moment later they might be seen enter- 
ing the library, arm in arm ; when, as likely 
as not. Rose would find it necessary to re- 
arrange her father’s cravat, or smooth the 
wrinkles out of his forehead, or set him to 
rights in some other equally important re- 
spect, chattering, all the time, without ceasing. 

“ And if what she says were wiser than the 
wisdom of Solomon, and more poetical than 
all the poets, he could not look better 
pleased,” thinks Miss Hester. 


His Honoris Daughter. 19 1 

Let it not for an instant be supposed that 
Miss Campbell watched her neighbors slyly, 
or that her observation was offensive. She 
was no such person, and they knew that she 
was not, and there was a tacit understanding 
between them on the subject. 

You see, padre mioP Miss Fanshawe said, 

I like to have the dear little soul look over 
here. It seems to amuse her. Besides, she 
is perfectly well-bred about it, and shows as 
much delicacy as frankness. And I like the 
pluck she has shown in that bow-window 
affair.” 

For, in the face of multiplied importunities 
to sell. Miss Campbell had lately had a bow- 
window built upon the front of her house — 
a movement at once aggressive and concilia- 
tory, indicating her determination not to be 
ousted, but also her desire to be as ornamental 
as circumstances would allow. 

In this window, the evening after hearing 
the story of Mr. Francis Grey’s fortunes. Miss 
Campbell sat leaning out into the soft October 
night, and watching the company next door. 
There had been a dinner-party of gentlemen, 
in honor of Judge Fanshawe’s fiftieth birth- 
day, and though the greater part of them 
were “ potent, grave, and reverend seigneurs,” 


192 


Autumn Leaves. 


the watcher felt a special interest in looking, 
for her cousin and Mr. Francis Grey were the 
exceptional young men invited to keep their 
girlish hostess in countenance. 

“ Rose received my laddie very well,’' com- 
mented Miss Hester, to whom the open 
windows and curtains gave a full view of the 
rooms. “ And no wonder. Donald’s address 
is pleasing, even with that touch of diffidence 
he has, since it is never awkward. How well 
his auburn hair lights up, and what a winning 
smile he has, bless him ! And now comes 
Mr. Grey, as finished and sharp as my scis- 
sors. He is handsome in his way ; but I 
don’t like that marble whiteness, with black 
hair. It looks too much like a pen-and-ink 
portrait of a man. A wash of sepia would 
improve him. Besides, he is too polished ; 
and that is always a hard substance, I think, 
which takes so good a polish. Now Rose is 
going to the piano. Oh ! why won’t some- 
body stop that organ-grinder? ” 

Listening eagerly, she caught the last 
stanza of the song : 

“ Sae sweet his voice, sae smooth his tongue ; 

His breath’s like cauler air; 

His very fit has music in’t, 

As he comes up the stair. 


His Honoris Daughter. 193 

And will I see his face again ? 

And will I hear him speak ? 

I’m downricht dizzy with the thoucht: 

In troth, I’m like to greet.” 

The inexorable hand-organ snatched away 
the rest, and ground it up. 

Miss Campbell recollected the story of 
Madame de Stahl, who, expecting a Scottish 
visitor, seated herself at her harp, and greeted 
his entrance to her salon with the strains of 
Lochaber no more. “ Grace is the same the 
world over,” she thought. And a simple 
lassie may be as charming as a queen.” 

After the song was over, some of the com- 
pany stepped out into a balcony to look at 
the night, lying in Rembrandt light and shade 
in the streets below, overhead an abyss of 
darkness, spanned by the jeweled arch of 
the milky-way, and swarming with stars. 
One of the gentlemen recited Blanco White’s 
sonnet — Mysterious Night ” — and the oth- 
ers were silent while they stood, and si- 
lently, one by one, returned to the drawing- 
room. 

Just inside the window Rose stood hold- 
ing the curtain-tassel in her hand, and indus- 
triously counting the loops in the fringe, 
while she listened to something Mr. Francis 


194 


Autumn Leaves, 


Grey was saying to her. She looked up to 
smile as Lieutenant Campbell passed her, 
bowing lowly, then lowered her eyes and 
listened again ; but only for a moment. 
Dropping the tassel, she turned away, with 
some slow, reluctant word, which the other 
had seemed to plead for, cast over her 
shoulder. 

“ You are too late, young man I ” whispered 
Miss Hester, delightedly. “ The Campbells 
are coming. Oho ! Dinna ye hear the pi- 
broch ? ” 

A few days after this dinner the com- 
mercial world had a sensation. Mr. Francis 
Grey, having gone up like a rocket, came 
down like a stick. Emboldened by his un- 
exampled success, he had embarked in a 
daring speculation, and had failed. At any 
earlier period of his career recovery would 
have been possible; now his ruin was utter. 
It was not only a loss of money, but of rep- 
utation. 

‘‘ I am thankful, my dear, that you were 
not engaged to him,” Judge Fanshawe said, 
after having told his daughter what had hap- 
pened. 

Mr. Grey had offered himself to Rose, and. 


His Honor's Daughter, 195 

seeing his chance of a favorable answer very 
small, had urged her to wait a week before 
deciding. In that time he hoped to be able 
to tempt her with a brilliant fortune. 

She stood silent a moment beside her 
father’s chair, absently watching him lay out, 
on the table before him, the notes of a trial 
he was studying. “ But, papa, you know I 
had not absolutely refused him,” she said 
presently. 

He will scarcely give you the chance to 
do so now,” was the reply. 

“ I don’t know why he should not,” she 
said. 

Her father paused in his work to give her 
a glance of surprise. 

“ I pity him very much,” she continued, 
her voice not quite steady. 

Judge Fanshawe took up his papers again. 
“ Of course you do ! Women, and especially 
young women, often do pity without rhyme 
or reason. It might be as well if you should 
bestow a little sympathy on those he has 
ruined.” 

There was a lock of hair on the crown of 
this gentleman’s head which had always been 
a great care to his daughter, in consequence 
of a tendency it had to stand up. She ab- 


196 


Autumn Leaves. 


sently smoothed it down now, and, since it 
would not stay, laid another lock over it. 

“ Would you have condemned him if he 
had succeeded, papa?” 

This question brought a faint color into 
the Judge’s face. “ If he had succeeded, he 
would have been able to meet his liabilities,” 
he replied evasively. 

And now he is not ? ” 

Now he is not.” 

People are very angry ? ” she asked, piling 
another lock of hair on to that troublesome 
one, which showed signs of revolt. 

*‘They are ready to tear him in pieces. 
Rose. There are a dozen actions out against 
him.” 

But he expected to be able to pay, didn’t 
he?” 

“ Just as I might expect that there will be 
fine weather a year from to-day. He meant 
to pay if he could ; but the chances were ten 
to one against him.” 

Isn’t that the way he has been making 
money all along?” Rose asked in a more 
assured voice, and let her hand slip down to 
her father’s shoulder, where it pressed. 

Judge Fanshawe began to suspect that he 
was being rather cleverly cross-questioned. 


( 


His Honof^s Daughter. 197 

and he did not like it. “You don’t under- 
stand these subjects, my child,” he said, with 
a touch of impatience. “ Public opinion pro- 
nounces against Francis Grey, and we have 
no more to do with him. I shall probably 
give him a civil recognition when I meet 
him ; but if he has the bad taste to put him- 
self in your way, I wish you to take no notice 
of him. It is well known that he was a suitor 
of yours, and you cannot be too decided in 
letting it be seen that the affair is at an end.” 

He finished with a short nod, which in 
court the lawyers always understood to mean 
that there was no more to be said on that 
subject. 

“ Papa, I pity him very, very much,” said 
Rose again. 

Her father dropped his papers, stretched 
an arm, and drew her round in front of him. 
His face wore a startled expression. “My 
dear child,” he said, “ is this going to hurt 
you ? Did you mean to accept him ?” 

“ No, I did not,” she answered quite stead- 
ily. “ But I do not think it right to desert 
him because every one else does. Of course, 
he has done wrong ; but that isn’t what 
people condemn him for, or they would have 
been shocked a good while ago. And maybe, 


Autumn Leaves^ 


198 

papa, if his other ventures had been frowned 
upon, he would not have made this.” 

Judge Fanshawe dropped his daughters 
hand, and drew back with an air of displeas- 
ure. 

“ Don’t be vexed ! ” she added hastily. I 
can’t help thinking, you know ; and that is 
the way the affair looks to me.” 

If the Judge had felt that he was on lofty 
and unassailable ground, he might have rea- 
soned with his daughter. But he had already 
been at some pains to convince himself that 
he was not a tardy moralist, and it was mor- 
tifying to find that his suspicion was her 
conviction. “We will drop the subject, if 
you please,” he said coldly, and resumed his 
employment. 

Rose went to the window, and stood there 
looking out into the early twilight. “ Poor 
fellow ! ” she thought, “ what will he do ? 
Perhaps he will kill himself. I wish some- 
body would be good to him. But no one 
will. I’m sure of that. I haven’t lived nine- 
teen years for nothing. When my father 
won’t be merciful, I can’t expect any one 
else to be. Oh, dear! I’m awfully afraid I 
shall get to like him immensely, if this goes 
on. Nature and I abhor a vacuum ; and 


V 


His Honoris Daughter. 199 

there will be such a dreadful void of pity and 
affection about Francis Grey, I shan’t be 
able to keep from rushing in to fill it up.” 

“ Papa ! ” she said, turning round, but with- 
out leaving the window. 

He looked at her coldly. 

“ If you were to speak kindly to him, and 
give him some good advice, don’t you think 
it would be better?” 

“ Certainly not ! ” he replied with decision. 
“ And now, will you have the goodness to 
recollect that I have dismissed the subject?’*’ 

With a sigh of perplexity Rose returned 
to the window. Presently a servant entered 
and gave her a letter. She glanced listlessly 
at the cover, wondered a little who her cor- 
respondent might be, broke the seal, and 
immediately became absorbed in the con- 
tents. 

After a while her father’s attention was 
attracted by a sound very like weeping, and, 
glancing that way, he saw Rose leaning in 
the shadow of the curtain, with her face in 
her hands. 

What’s the matter, child ? ” he exclaimed. 

Why, I didn’t mean to be cross, dear. 
Come and make up.” 

Rose went to him, wiping her eyes. 


200 


Autumn Leaves. 


There, papa,” she said, you can’t help 
pitying him after reading that.” 

Judge Fanshawe’s countenance changed as 
he took the letter and settled himself back 
in his chair to read it. Rose had not, then, 
been grieving over his displeasure. 

If Mr. Francis Grey had known into what 
hands his missive was to fall, its composition 
would, doubtless, have been more carefully 
considered. But, addressing himself only to 
Rose, and thinking only of her, every line he 
wrote was calculated to exasperate her father. 
He did not dream of renewing his offer of 
marriage, the young man wrote, but he 
begged for her pity and sympathy, and for a 
few lines, assuring him at least of her friend- 
ship. “ I had no right to risk the property 
of others, I own,” he admitted. “ But if I had 
succeeded, those who are now the loudest in 
denunciation would have been first to praise.” 

Judge Fanshawe’s face grew dark as he 
read, and having finished, he crushed the 
letter in his hand, and tossed it contemptu- 
ously into the fire. Facing his daughter 
then, for the first time he saw in her the re- 
flection of his own haughty spirit. 

Father,” she said, “you have burned 
every word of that letter into my heart ! ” 


His Honor's Daughter. 


201 


Rose,” he exclaimed, angrily, you as- 
tonish me ! I thought you had more sense 
of propriety. Let there be an end to this. 
I will inform Mr. Grey what I think of his 
trying to draw my daughter into a clandes- 
tine correspondence.” 

Rose was very pale, but quiet. I would 
like to write to him,” she said. 

‘‘ I forbid it ! ” 

She was silent a moment ; then repeated, 
“ I really think I shall write to him, papa.” 

Judge Fanshawe looked at his daughter, 
too astonished and indignant to speak at 
once. Her calmness, no less than her unex- 
pected defiance, had taken him completely 
by surprise. Evidently she needed a strong 
hand. He must make short work of it, or 
his authority would be gone before he knew 
it. ‘‘ Rose,” he said deliberately, when an 
answer to that note goes out of this house, 
you may go with it — and not return ! ” 

‘‘ Very well ! ” she answered quietly, and, 
after a moment, left the room. 

That evening Miss Campbell saw no pretty 
family group in the house across the way ; 
but on the curtain of Miss Fanshawe’s cham- 
ber was the silhouette of a lady, writing ; and 
in the library a gentleman alternately walked 


202 


Autumn Leaves. 


up and down, and fretfully tossed over a 
litter of papers, with which he seemed to be 
out of patience. 

Judge Fanshawe was not alarmed, though 
he was mortified and angry. A woman’s 
.revolt is usually so trivial and short-lived, 
her heart beating ever against her brittle 
f will, that men seldom regard it with any feel- 
/ ing more serious than impatience or con- 
tempt. Her last word ” has been well 
interpreted by one who well knows : 

“ What so false as truth is, 

False to thee ? 

Where the serpent’s tooth is, 

Shun the tree. 

" Where the apple reddens 
Never pry, 

Lest we lose our Edens, 

Eve and I ! ” 

Doubtless Rose Fanshawe’s father expected 
such a submission from her. 

The next morning breakfast passed almost 
in silence, the father stern and taciturn, the 
daughter pale, and rather wistful, each wait- 
ing for the other to approach the subject of 
their difference. When they left the table 


His Honor’s Daughter. 


203 


there was a moment of embarrassment, for 
that was the time when Rose embraced her 
father, and wished him a happy day. 

Judge Fanshawe fastened the loop of his 
cloak, and drew on his gloves, waiting for 
unconditional surrender and the usual vale- 
dictory. They did not come. Rose was one 
of those purely sincere persons, with whom a 
caress, or a tender word is a sign of love and 
peace. She had never learned, disdained to 
learn, the trick of hollow sweetness ; and she 
had never been taught the duty of humility 
and submission. 

She, too, waited, but finally asked, “ Papa, 
have you thought over what we were speak- 
ing of last night ? ” 

He put his hat on to go ; the slight relent- 
ing of his face chilled at once. “ I could 
have but one thought on the subject,” he 
replied, severely. I hoped and expected 
that by this time you would regret your 
absurd and disrespectful conduct.” 

Aren’t you willing I should write him a 
note, telling him that I am sorry for him, 
and you read it before it goes ? ” 

Judge Fanshawe turned, with his hand on 
the door-knob. Rose, your persistence is 
an insult to me. If you mention this subject 


204 


Autumn Leaves. 


again, I shall order you to leave the room. 
For the last time I repeat, I forbid you tak- 
ing any notice whatever of Mr. Francis 
Grey.” 

“And you mean all you said about it last 
night, papa?” 

“ Every word ! When an answer to that 
letter goes out of this house, you may go 
with it.” 

He said no more, but went out without a 
backward glance, and Rose, sighing heavily, 
returned to the library. Reaching the center 
of the room, she forgot to go any farther, 
and stood there, locked in thought. Pres- 
ently her thoughts broke out in soliloquy: 
“ My father has an uncommonly fine mind ; 
but he can make mistakes, and he has made 
one with me. He forgets that I have a mind 
of my own, and a right to my own opinions, 
and to have them treated with some respect. 
Since I have been made, I must grow. And 
yet, I am a sort of heliotrope; and if he 
would only shine on me, I should be pretty 
sure to grow his way. But now I feel very 
implacable. I suppose I take it from 
him.” 

When Judge Fanshawe came home that 
night he saw no smiling face in the window. 


His Honoris Daughter, 


205 


and no cheerful greeting met him at the 
threshold. I did not know that Rose could 
be sulky,” he thought, and opened the door 
for himself. 

A note addressed to him lay on the hall- 
table. He tore it open, and read : 

My dear Father : Since you are master 
in your own house, my note and I are going 
out together. I am sorry to disobey you ; 
but it isn’t in my heart to let any one in 
trouble cry out to me and never give in reply 
a word of pity. I am going to Mrs. Bond’s, 
and I shall be very careful, and no one will 
know from me why I am there. When you 
want me back you can let me know, and I 
shall be very glad to come. 

Your affectionate daughter, 

“ Rose.” 

Whatever the father may have suffered in 
reading that, no one knew it. 

“ Hasn’t Miss Rose come in yet, sir.? ” the 
servant asked when he went down alone to 
dinner. 

“She will not be in to dinner,” was the 
concise reply. 

“Am I to sit up for Miss Rose, sir?” he 
was asked, as he went up-stairs that night. 


2o6 


Autumn Leaves. 


‘‘ She will not come back to-night/’ he 
replied. 

Days passed without her being summoned 
home; weeks and months passed, and still 
there was no sign of invitation on the one 
side, or of penitence on the other. 

“ It is not so much the mere fact of her 
writing the note,” the Judge said to himself. 

It is the disobedience, the defiance, and 
ingratitude. A principle is involved, and 
she must humble herself.” 

I don’t mind so much that he sent me 
out for nothing,” thought Rose. But since 
he has sent me, of course I shall wait till he 
calls me back again.” 

And so the two, gently calm in appearance, 
but as immovable as rocks, held to their will 
in silence, satisfying no person’s curiosity, 
and refusing to listen to their own hearts or 
consciences. 

Winter passed away, and spring came. 
There had been a succession of wild storms, 
March coming in like a lion ; but at length 
the lamb appeared. A last fling of rain, 
sharp as a lash, out of the darkening east and 
into the reddening west ; a last growl that 
ended in an exhausted sough, and all at once 


207 


Ilis Hono7''s Daughter. 

there was spring, a melting loveliness over 
earth and sky, rosy and rain-washed and still. 
In such stillness the last vestige of the storm 
disappeared, and the heavens balanced the 
waning glory of the sun and the waxing glory 
of the moon. Then the starry beam tilted, 
and it was night. 

Miss Hester Campbell, paler and frailer 
than ever, sat in her bow-window, with her 
cousin beside her. He had been away all 
winter in the Mediterranean, and they were 
just subsiding into quiet after the excitement 
of their first meeting since his return. 

“When spring comes, I always want to 
live,” she said, sighing, as she looked out. 
“A pale little hope, about as large as a 
snow-drop, and as fragile, springs up in my 
heart.” 

“ My poor Hester ! ” exclaimed the soldier, 
taking her shadowy little hand in his strong 
one. 

“ But I don't mean to complain,” she 
added, hastily. “ Indeed, I have but one 
real trouble, and that is that desolate house,” 
glancing across the way. 

“ Hasn’t he taken the young couple 
home?” asked Lieutenant Campbell, in a 
constrained voice. 


2o8 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ The young couple, Donald ? Non- 
sense ! his cousin exclaimed. “ That’s 
what comes of your getting none of my 
letters. There was no thought of their being 
married. The trouble must have been about 
something else, nobody knows what. Didn’t 
you hear that Blentdavir came to the rescue 
and sent Grey off to the east in one of his 
ships? It was an escape, though. He had 
to run away in the night. Mrs. Bond says 
that he came to her house once after Rose 
went there, but she wouldn’t see him.” 

At Miss Hester’s first word her cousin 
dropped her hand ; but not before she had 
felt a strong pulse fly to each of his finger-tips. 

“ Have you seen her? ” he asked. 

“Rose? No. Well, Ann, what is it?” — 
to the servant. 

“A lady to see you. Miss Campbell,” was 
the answer. 

The visitor came forward swiftly, and 
stood in the moonlight — Rose Fanshawe! 

“ Please don’t disturb yourself,” the girl 
said in a soft, hurried voice that sounded as 
if she were out of breath. “ Sit down again. 
There! I want to talk with you a little 
while. But you are engaged ” — perceiving 
that Miss Campbell was not alone. 


His Honoris Daughter. 


209 


The gentleman came out of the shadow. 

“Oh! Lieutenant Campbell! You are 
welcome back. I heard that you had been 
away. But I want to talk with your cousin, 
now.” 

“ ril finish my cigar down-stairs,” he said. 
“ And when you are ready, let me know, 
and I will go home with you.” 

“ Miss Campbell, I want you to tell me 
about my father,” Rose began abruptly the 
instant the two were alone. “ There is no 
one else whom I would ask, and no one 
else who can tell me what I wish to 
know. You see him often, of course. Do 
you think he is lonely ? Do many people 
go there ? Does he look well ? ” 

“ My dear, he seems to me desolate,” Miss 
Hester said gravely. “ I think he often 
spends the evening quite alone. And he 
does not look well.” 

“ Don’t say desolate ! ” Rose cried out 
sharply. “That is a terrible word. What 
have you heard him say, or seen him do? 
When did you see him last ? ” 

Miss Fanshawe’s face looked quite pale in 
the moonlight, and her cheeks had lost some- 
thing of their roundness. Her friend noticed 
that, and took her hand kindly. “ I heard 

14 


210 


Autumn Lea'Ves. 


him speak yesterday/' she said. “ When he 
came home in the evening a little girl was 
running along before him, with a package in 
her hand. Evidently it was something very 
precious. But she was too eager and de- 
lighted to mind her steps, and just in front 
of your house she slipped on the wet pave- 
ment, and fell. There was a little crash as 
she fell, and bits of painted china flew about. 
Judge Fanshawe took the poor little sobbing 
thing up — he is very kind to children, my 
dear — and asked about her mishap. It ap- 
peared that she had, for a long time, been 
saving up her money to buy her father a 
birthday present, and had got a painted 
coffee-cup ; and there it was ! 

“ When she had finished her little story, 
crying bitterly all the while, he gave her 
money to buy another cup. ‘ It was better 
to break that than to break your father’s 
heart,’ he said, and went up the steps to his 
own house, where there was no child to wel- 
come him. He looked very sorrowful, and 
he seems to be getting old. I think he 
stoops a little.” 

It is never pleasant to sit alone at table, 
especially at evening, when loneliness is least 


His Honoris Daughter. 21 1 

tolerable. Judge Fanshawe had found this 
to his cost. But he could not bear to invite 
company. While his daughter’s place was 
vacant he could fancy that she was only lin- 
gering a moment — that presently the door 
would open, a slight shape come tripping in, 
a bright cheek touch his faded one, and his 
own dear little girl put to flight, by her gay 
presence, all the cruel imaginings that had 
been tormenting him. To-night his trouble 
pressed more heavily than ever. He left his 
dinner untouched, went into the library and 
tried to read. But the page might as well 
have been blank for any sense he took of it. 
The book dropped from his hand, and he sat 
looking into the fire, and thinking — not such 
thoughts as the young have, when life is all 
before them, but such as come to those 
whose illusions are faded, and who feel upon 
their souls the grasp of solemn realities. Till 
that proud, rebellious daughter left him. 
Judge Fanshawe had scarcely thought of 
age or death. His heart could not grow dull 
with her young heart bounding so near, and 
gray hairs did not trouble him when her 
pretty, prying fingers found them out, and 
her sweet voice chid him so merrily. You 
think too much, papa ; that’s the trouble. 


212 


Autumn Leaves. 


You mean to be Chief-Justice, and you turn 
your hair gray with plotting.” He could 
hear her loving nonsense in his ears now. 

His eyes grew dim, and long rays stretched, 
trembling, toward them from the fire. 

That miserable affair of Francis Grey's! 
Judge Fanshawe owned to himself now that 
he had been hasty, and that Rose, in spite 
of her disobedience, had shown the nobler 
spirit. “ Other girls might have been more 
obedient, without being any better,” he mut- 
tered. “ I don’t want a daughter of mine to 
be led by a ring in her nose. It is only in 
the light of religion that she has done 
wrong.” 

And what religion had he taught her? 
None. He had sowed in humanity alone, 
and must be content with such harvest as 
humanity could bring forth. 

“ It is evident that she will not come till I 
have humbled myself to ask her,” he said. 
“ I thought I could not do that ; but to- 
night—” 

He drew a table to him, and wrote one 
line : “ Rose, will you not come home to 
your father P”^ — his eyes filling a she wrote. 
When the note was sealed and directed, he 
dropped his face into his hands, and wept 


His Honor’s Daughter. 


213 


like a child. It was cruel that he should 
have to ask her, even if she should come 
willingly at his summons. 

The door-bell rang as he sat there. He 
wiped his eyes hastily, and turned his face 
from the light. 

Do you want anything, sir ? '' asked 
Thomas, the contraband, putting his head 
into the room. 

“ No. What should make you think I 
want anything ? The street door-bell rang.’’ 

“ Yes, sir! ” said Thomas, lingering. 

Confound the fellow!” said the Judge 
to himself. He’s prying — thinks some- 
thing is the matter since I ate no dinner. 
“ Well, Thomas,” — aloud — “ what are you 
waiting for? Did any one come in ? ” 

“Yes, sir! No, sir!” replied the contra- 
band, in a highly lucid manner. 

“ Try to make up your mind about it,” rec- 
ommended his master dryly, without once 
turning his face toward the door. 

“Yes, sir ! ” said Thomas again, and with- 
drew in a fumbling way, obeying the imper- 
ative wave of a hand that was not Judge 
Fanshawe’s. 

Left to himself again, the master of the 
house, with a long-drawn sigh that told of a 


214 


Autumn Leaves. 


weary weight at heart, went back to his 
bitter musings. 

“ Father ! ” said a breathless voice at his 
side, at his shoulder, where a tearful face 
drooped. May I stay with you ? I’ve 
waited and waited — and, oh ! father, you 
would have called me back long ago if you 
had known how sorry I was, how I wanted 
to come.” 

After all, the harvest of him who sows 
only human love may be very sweet. Or is 
it, as Coleridge says, that there is religion in 
all deep love ? 

‘‘You’re not growing old, are you, papa?” 
she asked, after a while, winking the tears off 
her eyelashes that she might see him, but in 
vain, since they gathered again immediately. 

“ I was old an hour ago, my child,” he 
said. 

She made a great effort, and wiped her 
eyes with both hands. “ Now, papa, won’t 
you please to stand up ? ” 

The Judge stood up obediently, but with 
some wonder, possibly with an impression 
that he was going to be put upon oath. 

Rose looked him over with anxious criti- 
cism. Then a triumphant laugh and blush 
broke together into her face. “You don’t 


His Honoris Daughter. 


215 


stoop one bit ! ” she cried, embracing him 
with transport. “ And now — pressing him 
into his chair again in her pretty, half-im- 
perative, half-entreating way, and kneeling 
down beside him — how shall I ever tell you 
half how sorry I am ? I don’t mean to say,” 
she corrected herself, “that I am sorry I 
gave him a kind word ; but I am sorry I did 
it without your consent. For I could have 
got your consent — you know I could — papa, 
if I had coaxed long enough for it. I could 
coax anything out of you, you dearest and 
most indulgent father, that a hard-hearted, 
ungrateful girl like me ever had ! And I’m 
sorry I hadn’t gone on my knees to you 
afterwards. I would if I had known that 
you wanted me to. You see, papa, I thought 
I was doing right, and I forgot that my first 
duty was to you.” 

“Your first duty was to God, my dear,” 
he replied. “ But how could you know that 
when I never taught you, and when I myself 
forgot that duty ? Let us mutually forgive, 
and try to do better in the future.” 

After a while, when she had given her 
father an account of the manner in which she 
had spent the winter. Rose told of her visit 
to Miss Campbell, and that Lieutenant 


2i6 


Autumn Leaves. 


Campbell came home with her. “ And, 
come to think of it, I don’t believe I was 
quite civil to him,” she said. “ I didn’t thank 
him, nor say good night. I was wild to reach 
you.” She mused a moment, with her eyes 
upraised and fixed on the lamp-flame ; then 
added, more softly, “ but I recollect he said 
something before he turned away. It sound- 
ed like ‘ God bless you ! ’ That was very 
good of him. Young men don’t usually 
speak so. I would rather one should say 
that to me than pay me the finest compli- 
ment.” 

Unnoticed by her, Judge Fanshawe 
watched his daughter closely while she 
spoke. “ That is a young man whom I es- 
teem highly,” he remarked quietly. 

Do you ! ” said Rose, with a pleased, un- 
conscious smile, her color deepening softly. 
******* 

Lieutenant Campbell’s hand was on the 
door-latch when he heard her speak his name, 
and came quickly back to her. 

I thought,” she began, then stopped. 
From his height he looked down with smil- 
ing eyes upon the dear girl, with her frank, 
bright, blushing face. 

** I’m afraid you will think I don’t know 


His Honoris Daughter. 


217 


my own mind,” she said in some distress. 

But when I saw you going, I thought that 
maybe I know well enough now, without 
waiting a week. Fm pretty sure that if you 
and papa are willing, I am — that is — I meant 
to say ” 

What His Honor’s Daughter meant to 
say must forever remain a matter of doubt ; 
for that sentence was never finished. 


2i8 


Autumn Leaves. 


LOYALTY. 

I CANNOT sleep ! ” he moaned. “ The echo- 
ing bray 

Of beastly voices from the jungle where 

All wild, discordant creatures make their 
lair. 

Still clangs within my ears, chasing away 

The downy, hovering rest I long for so ! 

Come, sing to me the sweetest song you 
know.” 

Then one sang softly, yet with full heart- 
force. 

As when a south wind through the low- 
hung skies 

All its deep-laden watery argosies 

Bears smoothly onward in its winged course : 

I love you ! ” was the song. And yet 
again 

I love you ! ” came the soft impassioned 
strain. 

“ Nay ! something gentle ! For the tents of 
sleep 

At the strong pressure of your love-song 
sway 


Loyalty, 


219 

From their cloud tether, and are borne 
away 

Like wind-tossed ships across a stormy deep. 

Love is half bitter, love is wide awake. 

Sing me a song of peace, for love’s dear 
sake ! ” 

Then one sang tremulously, and with tears : 

So deep my sympathy, I never knew 

A keener pang than that which wounded 
you. 

And, following ever through the fateful 
years, 

The stigmata on my own heart impressed 

Of every barbed lance that probed your 
breast.” 

‘‘ Oh, sweet the song ! Than love so sweeter 
far ! 

Yet, listening, my moan breaks forth once 
more. 

For every wound that I, disdainful, bore 

Sharpens to anguish when you show the 
scar. 

Hope and sustaining will abandon me. 

Is there no sweeter word than sympathy ? ” 

Then one sang lowly, in a steadfast tone, 

Honor’s true answer to true honor’s call : 


220 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ I trust you, knowing naught, yet knowing 
all ! ” 

Oh, sacred confidence ! With you alone 
Peace makes her dwelling-place ; nor any 
fear. 

Nor discord can disturb while you are 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


221 


A DOVE OF SAINT MARK’S. 

Ah / Eu ! ” cried the gondolier, leaning 
on his oar and peering forward into a dim 
rio leading from the Grand Canal to the 
Giudecca. There was no reply — no other 
gondola was coming — and they shot round 
the corner into the shadow of garden-walls 
and soaring palaces. 

There were two persons in the gondola, a ! 
young man and a young woman. Both were 
painters ; and they were taking their first sight 
of Venice, having arrived but an hour before 
from Padua. Having mutual friends, they 
had made acquaintance with each other in a 
boarding-house in Florence, had come to 
Venice with a party of tourists, and had taken j 
rooms in the same house on the Riva degli 
Schiavoni. 

Mr. John Dennys was a painter by profes- 
sion, and at twenty-eight years of age had 
already a budding reputation. Miss Frances J 
Andrews declared that she only painted to / 
please herself, and should never dare ask any j 
one to pay money for one of her pictures. 


222 


Autumn Leaves. 


Nevertheless, she studied as assiduously as 
though her bread depended on her work. 
She was twenty-five years of age and a 
brighter man than Mr. Sparkler might have 
j said that there was “ no nonsense about her.” ; 
r. One might have observed that the woman’s 
j gaze was almost always directed upwards. 

1 She looked at the outlines of church and 
palace against the sky, at airy balconies 
which reminded her of those out of which 
angels lean in some painted dome, at top- 
: most windows as lovely and secluded as nests j 
1 in a tree-top. The man occupied himself 
: rather with what was on his own level : a j 
carved door, a dim, slanting stair leading be- | 
• tween high walls to a piazza, a bridge lined , 
1 under its dark arch with dancing reflections. 

\ Suddenly he called to the gondolier to 
stop. “ What is that on the water ? ” he 
asked, pointing to a bit of burnished color 
floating near. 

The gondolier, by a dexterous turn of the 
oar, brought them alongside the object, bent 
quickly, and snatched it out of the water in 
passing. It was one of the doves of Saint 
Mark’s, full-grown, but not yet sure on the 
wing. It had probably attempted too long 
a flight, and falling, could only lie with its 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


223 


wings outspread on the water and wait for 
rescue. The gondolier gave it, drenched and 
trembling, into the painter’s hands. 

Dennys dried it, with his companion’s help, 
and warmed it in his hands. The creature — 
its first fright over — crept beneath his coat 
and tried to hide itself under his arm. When 
he set it for a moment on the little shelf made 
by the boat-frame, it crept into the darkest 
corner and hid its head. It seemed to be 
ashamed. 

Poor little Colombo ! ” said Dennys, tak- 
ing it in his hands again and wrapping his 
coat about it. You mustn’t be so easily 
cast down. You have got to fail before you 
can succeed. That is the way with us poor 
bipeds without feathers. Persevere as your 
namesake and countryman did, and you may 
yet fly around the world.” He bent, and 
laid his cheek for an instant caressingly 
against the purple neck and wings. 

“ I imagine,” he said, speaking to his com- 
panion, “ that a winged creature which fails 
in attempting to fly may consider itself dis- 
graced. Who knows but his companions 
flout him ? Who knows but they have told 
this little fellow that he was hatched out of 
a hen’s egg, and so dared him to a flight 


224 


Autumn Leaves, 


beyond his powers! Never you mind, my 
beauty ! ” he added, bending his cheek to the 
dove again, “ I will take care of you.” 

The young man had forgotten sight-seeing 
for his poetical treasure-trove, and the young 
woman had forgotten it, too, in watching 
him. The slender, supple form, the colorless, 
finely-moulded face, the golden, tapering 
beard, seen in that soft twilight of water and 
sculptured stone, made an attractive picture. 
The prow of the gondola rose behind him 
like the neck of a violin, and — she thought — 
made him seem set to music. “ What a good 
heart he has ! ” she said to herself. 

The thought uttered itself quite frankly in 
her mind ; but just behind it some nebulous 
creature of consciousness, that had not yet 
taken form, trembled and fled like a shadow, 
leaving no trace — unless a faint deepening of 
the rose color in the smooth cheeks might be 
its imprint. The flying thing might later 
take some such shape as : “ What a fascinat- 
ing lover he would make ! ” 

They came out into the Giudecca and sun- 
set. A great steamship from Cairo loomed 
up before them ; a little omnibus-steamer 
darted past them like a humming-bird ; there 
were boats everywhere, and gay splashes of 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


225 


color where a fishing vessel sailed by, or lay 
anchored. Sparkle, light, grace, and melting- | 
ly-soft sounds made up the world about them. 

Miss Andrews sat with her hands clasped 
in her lap, glancing mutely now and then at 
her companion for sympathy. Her tempera- 
ment fitted her to live in an atmosphere of 
exalted feeling. Dennys effervesced occa- 
sionally — when he first came out of the 
bottle, as he said — but had a way of settling 
into coolness somewhat unexpectedly. 

“ It isn’t half bad for a wet place,” he said, 
in answer to a glance. And when she silently 
pointed to a vessel that sat motionless upon 
the water, its dark hulk doubled and the rude 
red-and-yellow picture on its reflected sail 
straining tremulously downward toward a 
nether heaven, he said : “ Now, if we could 
only introduce sail-painting among the Amer- 
ican fishers, we could just settle on the banks 
of Newfoundland and paint pictures for the 
rest of our lives.” 

“ Suppose we go home now,” she said, as 
they slid down past the custom-house. “ Y our 
Saint Mark’s dove seems to have dampened 
your enthusiasm as well as your coat. Be- 
sides, we dine before Ave Maria — to save 
lights, probably. I cannot imagine any but 
IS 


226 


Autu7nn Leaves. 


a hideous reason for calling people in and 
setting them down to eat just at that hour 
when Dante watched and sang the dying 
day.” 

Besides, I must take care of my pet,” 
Dennys said, after calling out “ Casa ! ” to 
the gondolier, “You don’t seem to appre- 
ciate my prize. Don’t you know that no one 
is permitted either to catch or to kill one of 
these doves ? Do you imagine, madam, that 
it is one of those profane creatures whose 
necks they wring you fora pigeon-pie ? Just 
wait till you see us flying ! We will have a 
cage with the door forever open.” 

“ Happy cat ! ” remarked the lady, dryly. 

As they passed under the bridge to the 
water-door of their boarding-house, a face 
appeared in the drawing-room window and 
looked down at them, catching and fixing the 
painter’s glance. It was a small face, infan- 
tile yet ripe, with vivid crimson in the cheeks 
and pouting lips, large dark eyes of a wonder- 
ful brilliancy, and a weight of loose black 
hair twisted into a crown about the head. 

“ It is Catina, the maid,” Miss Andrews 
said. “ I have already talked with her. She 
is a niece of our landlady, the Sor Rosa. 
Her mother is dead, and her father is a 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


227 


drunkard who squanders all his money in 
drink and gambling. So her aunt gives her 
a home, and makes her useful. She is very 
pretty.” 

She is just what I want for my Ruby,” 
Dennys exclaimed. (He had an idea of paint- 
ing a series of human jewels.) What 
color ! ” 

The face, having returned his gaze with 
a timid earnestness, disappeared from the 
window. 

1 wish that you would sit to me for a 
Pearl,” he added, turning to Miss Andrews. 

She had, in fact, an oval face of a rare, 
pure whiteness. 

They had reached the step, and the door 
was opened for them by Catina, who lost 
nothing on being viewed nearer. Her figure 
was small, but had the same appearance of 
ripeness as her face, though she could not 
have been more than eighteen years of age. 
She smiled, a timid, flitting smile, and gave 
the painter a brilliant glance from under her 
long lashes — then dropped her eyes. Her 
manner betrayed a certain agitation, a min- 
gling of timidity and confidence, which was 
touching. 

“ See what we have brought, Catina,” Miss 


228 


Autumn Leaves. 


Andrews said ; and she briefly told the story 
of the dove. 

The girl listened with softly-interpolated 
exclamations of pity, smoothed tenderly the 
bright plumage when the painter held his 
dove out to her, and promised to find a cage 
for it. And all the while they spoke to- 
gether, her breath came flutteringly, and those 
beautiful eyes of hers were raised from time 
to time in brilliant, fugitive glances to the 
young man’s face. 

“ I don’t know what to make of her ! ” 
Miss Andrews thought, with some irritation, 
as she entered her own chamber after having 
seen Catina disappear down a long corridor 
into the painter’s room. He carried the dove 
held against his breast and looked steadily 
down at the girl beside him, studying her 
with all the unscrupulousness of the artist ; 
while she held the cage, and gave fleeting 
upward glances, and spoke with a tremulous, 
painstaking propriety. 

It was impossible that the American girl 
should know what to make of this bright bit 
of foreign humanity, nurtured in a country 
where nothing in nature is taboo. Catina, 

■ according to Miss Andrews’ standard, was 
not innocent, though she was strictly virtuous 


A Dove of St, Markus, 


229 


according to her own. Her first wish was to 
marry as soon as possible, and she hoped 
that her beauty might procure her a husband 
of a social position superior to her own. Her 
only chance seemed to be with one of the 
many painters who came to her aunt's house. 
She looked at every new-comer to see if he 
admired her; and if she found his person 
agreeable, she gave him every opportunity to 
let her know if the impression she had made 
on him was a serious one. She knew poor 
girls who had married foreign artists, and 
she calculated her chances as she would have 
calculated the probability of her getting a 
good situation as chambermaid, had she 
been obliged to leave the Sor Rosa. But it 
was always the husband whose image she 
dwelt upon — the master of a pretty apart- 
ment of which she should be mistress with, 
perhaps, the glory of a servant of her own. 
She contemplated the possibility of silk 
dresses, pearl-powder, and artificial flowers 
in a real bonnet ; not dreaming that her veil, 
or even shawl, was a prettier head-dress than 
those sighed-for caprices of fashion which 
adorned the heads of her superiors. A red- 
cheeked bambino or a figliuoletta was always 
taken for granted ; and she had quite made 


230 


Autumn Leaves. 


up her mind how she should dress the child, 
and what little lessons of educazione she 
should give it. She had her theater and 
stage very definitely arranged, and they rep- 
resented her sole hopes on earth ; but the 
lover was as yet personally indifferent, and 
one possible candidate after another failed 
her without having awakened either love or 
regret. When their indifference became 
obvious, she thought no more about them. 
But till she felt herself rejected, it must be 
owned that Catina had sometimes the air of 
mutely offering herself to them. If a gentle- 
man’s eyes rested on her, she stood still, 
humbly and modestly, to be looked at as 
long as he might wish, glancing at him with 
those wistful, wondrous eyes of hers, as if to 
ask what he thought of her. When he dis- 
missed her, she went. But when she looked 
down and met the earnest gaze of John 
Dennys’ blue eyes looking up at her from 
the gondola, when she met him at the door 
and saw the dove trembling in his breast, and 
felt his smile and heard his low and pleasant 
voice, something new stirred in her heart. 
She hardly knew where she was when she 
rummaged through the attic in search of a 
bird-cage. A palace seemed to have reared 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 231 

itself about her ; and when she went through 
the long corridor to Dennys’ room with the 
painter looking down at her admiringly, she 
felt as though she were floating above the 
earth. 

Shall I take it down to the kitchen to 
get warm ? ” she asked, when they had put 
the dove into its cage. 

Oh ! it’s warm enough here,” said 
Dennys. “ I will set it in the sun.” 

She would not contradict him, though she 
doubted ; and when he gave her a nod of 
dismissal, she silently withdrew. 

Dennys went down to dinner and took the 
measure, more or less correct, of the twenty 
persons seated around the table. They 
began their dinner in silence, being strangers 
to each other — or nearly so — and Dennys 
divided his attention between his plate and 
Catina serving. What a splendid color she 
had, and what picturesquely-careless hair ! 

I must certainly paint her ! ” he thought. 

At length conversation began like the 
birds at dawn, in little timid peeps here and 
there, chiefly interrogative. Opinions stole 
out and contrary ones awoke ; and presently 
the whole company became engaged in a not 
over-courteous discussion of the question : 


232 Autumn Leaves, 

What is the true end of all art, and especially, 
of painting? Two or three declared that 
there should be a moral possible, if not 
aggressively evident ; but the majority were 
of opinion that the object of the painter 
should be to please, by presenting beautiful 
forms and colors. The gentlemen of the 
company being all painters, the discussion 
took a personal character, and soon became 
more warm than courteous; and the more 
the artist was determined to please by his 
pictures, the less he seemed to think it 
necessary to please by his manners. 

Some peacemaker seized an opportunity 
to ask for the rescued dove, as they rose 
from the table. Dennys deputed Miss An- 
drews to tell the story, and taking a piece of 
bread went off to his own room. 

The dove was where he had left it, huddled 
into a corner of its cage and trying to hide 
its head. He put the bread before it, and 
tried to coax it to eat. Finding his efforts 
futile, he left it to do as it pleased and went 
to bed. In the morning the little creature 
was in the same corner of the cage, but it no 
longer tried to avoid him. 

The dove of Saint Mark’s was dead. 

I am so sorry ! ” Dennys said, carrying it 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


233 

down to the dining-room, where Miss An- 
drews sat sketching by a window. am 
afraid that I ought to have taken more pains 
last night.” 

He seated himself by the side window 
from which Catina had looked at him the 
day before, and gazed in pensive silence at 
the dead bird resting on his knee. Catina, 
clearing away the breakfast-table, glanced at 
him as she came and went. Miss Andrews, 
seated by the front-window, was sketching 
the campanile of San Giorgio and trying to 
get in its reflection that came quivering half- 
way across the lagoon — now a succession 
of rippling lines, now swept out of sight 
by a sheet of dazzling light, and again 
rippling into sight. She also glanced at 
the painter, and had half a mind to aban- 
don the subject in hand and make a sketch 
of him. 

What a good heart he has ! ” she thought 
for the second time in twenty-four hours. 

And how beautiful he is ! ” 

Catina finished clearing the table, hovered 
about for a few minutes, then timidly ap- 
proached the painter. ^‘Will you have it 
stuffed?” she asked. 

Gracious, no ! ” he exclaimed, and gave 


234 


Autumn Leaves. 


such a start that the dead bird fell from his 
knee to the floor. 

Catiiia picked it up and gently smoothed 
its plumage, holding it against her breast. 
“You can bury it in the garden,” she said. 

“Is there a garden? That is just the 
thing.” Dennys rose. “ Come and show 
me the way. I want to finish the business. 
Miss Andrews, will you assist in paying the 
last honors to our departed friend ? ” 

He had already started, and standing 
beside Catina, looked back from the middle 
of the room. 

“ Women do not assist at funerals in this 
country,” she replied, her eyes on her sketch. 
“ I will go later and carry flowers.” 

She hardly owned to herself that she was 
a little out of humor, though she certainly 
did not like the ease with which Catina made 
acquaintance with the gentlemen of the 
house. “ A girl like that should wait to be 
spoken to,” she thought, pulling out her 
watch when the two had left the room. If 
she wished to make sure* how long the fu- 
neral ceremonies would last, she must have 
I suspected that her imagination was capable 
\ of exaggerating the time. 

Catina, still holding the dove against her 


A Dove of St, Mark's, 


235 


breast, led the way to a corner of the garden 
where a clump of oleander trees made a 
pleasant solitude. Standing behind them, 
one could see without being seen. “You 
might bury it here,” she said, and looked at 
Dennys with a flitting, conscious smile. She 
had given him the opportunity to pay her a 
compliment. Would he improve it? He 
thought that she was afraid of him. “ I sup- 
pose an Italian would feel obliged to do a 
little love-making if he were in my place,” 
he thought. 

The small grave was dug and lined with 
rose-leaves, and the dove was set in it as in 
a nest and covered with rose-leaves and with 
earth. Catina had made a tour of the garden 
and had swept all the over-blown roses into 
her apron. Then, when the tiny mound was 
smoothed over, she shaped a cross on it with 
oleander buds. 

“ What do you think, Catina ? ” the 
painter said, when they stood side by side, 
their task ended. “Will that dove ever fly 
again ? 

“ I do not know,” she replied seriously. 
“ But my mother said that there are birds in 
heaven. When she was dying, she said that 
she heard them singing.” 


236 


Autumn Leaves. 


Poor Catina ! ” murmured the painter. 

“ My mother was very religious/’ the girl 
went on. “ Every one who saw her said that 
she died like a saint. When they gave her 
olio santo, her face shone, and she kept say- 
ing, ' Oh, that music ! ’ ” 

“ You were at home, then ? ” Dennys said. 

No ; I was here then, and she was in the 
hospital. She was a dressmaker, and while 
she could work we lived at home, and did 
not suffer. My father is a bad man, and 
drinks all the time. He never supported us ; 
so that when mother became sick, she had to 
go to the hospital. Sometimes he took her 
money ; and when she refused it, he beat her. 
She was sick three months. She died of con- 
sumption.” 

Dennys looked at the brilliant face with 
a compassionate misgiving. The mother s 
death gave a new significance to its vivid 
color. He marked the dazzling whiteness of 
the blue-veined brow and temples, and the 
light shadow under those lustrous eyes. 

Has any other relative of yours died of con- 
sumption ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes, mother’s youngest sister. She died 
because she lost her only child. The doctor 
said that it was trouble made my mother 


A Dove of St. Markus. 237 

have consumption. I should die of it, if any 
great trouble came to me.” 

Oh, you won’t have any great trouble,” 
Dennys said lightly, amused by her air of 
simple and solemn conviction. “You will 
be plagued with a great many lovers — that 
is all — and won’t know which one to choose. 
But girls do not die of that ; they thrive on 
it. How many lovers have you now, Catina ? ” 
Her sad looks were gone. She was smiling 
and blushing consciously. 

“ There have been a good many ; but they 
were a poor sort,” she said. “ My aunt 
wouldn’t consent to any ; and if she had, I 
would not have married any of them. I 
don’t want to marry an Italian. They nearly 
all of them beat their wives.” 

“ Whom do you want to marry ? ” asked 
Dennys, much amused. 

Gatina’s head drooped, but her hesitancy 
was not awkward, nor too conscious. “A 
friend of mine married a German,” she said. 
Catina called her friend’s husband a todesco, 
“ A todesco ! ” repeated Dennys, smiling, 
and emphasizing slightly. “ So the todeschi 
never beat their wives.” 

“ Angela’s husband never beat her,” said 
Catina. 


238 


Autumn Leaves. 


“ Well,” concluded the painter, making a 
motion to go, “ 1 hope that your husband 
will never beat you. If he should attempt 
it, call upon me. I will attend to him. Now 
run and ask your aunt if she will let me paint 
your portrait. I will give you a copy of it 
if she consents.” 

Catina flew away with joyful haste, and 
Dennys returned to the drawing-room. The 
services are ended,” he said to Miss Andrews, 
whom he found consulting her watch. You 
made a mistake in not going.” 

You found them interesting ? ” she asked, 
with gentle indifference, seeming to be ab- 
sorbed in her sketch. Thirty-five minutes ! ” 
she thought. 

He walked up and down the room giving 
a florid description of the burial, and telling 
how he meant to dress Catina for his Ruby. 
“ I must have some red plush. Plush always 
looks as if the light were shining out of it, 
not on to it. What’s become of the little 
shoulder-cape you wore last winter in Flor- 
ence ? It always seemed to be the very 
source of all the reds about — a sort of a John 
Keats among the colors, h la Browning.” 

“ I will ^ fish my murex up ’ from the depths 
of a trunk for you, if you want it,” Miss 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


239 


Andrews said. “You can make Gatina a 
present of it.’' 

“ Oh, no ! ’’ he said, quickly, finding her 
tone rather dry. “I didn’t mean to disk for 
it, but only after it. I hope that the prepo- 
sitions define my meaning. There goes our 
gondolier with a new batch of tourists. I 
hope he won’t forget to point out the home 
of ^ Lod Bahyan.’ What an impression Byron 
made in Italy ! They forget the visits of 
popes and kings ; but they will always point 
out the house where he lived.’’ 

“ That’s because all the English ask for it 
more than for the popes and kings,” she an- 
swered, still with reserve. “ Besides, they 
say that Satan leaves his tracks wherever he 
goes — scorches them in.” Then, repenting 
of her ugly speech, “ After all, poor Byron ! ” 
she added, and looked up with a smile. 

That smile restored Denny’s tranquillity. 
He had been growing uneasy, with a feeling 
of being chilled. For some time he had had 
the habit of talking a good deal with this 
girl, and rather confidentially. He always 
told her what his plans were, and asked her 
advice. It rather surprised himself, as he had 
not been in the habit of holding very con- 
fidential intercourse with any one ; but it 


240 


Autumn Leaves. 


was very pleasant. He liked the quiet listen- 
ing, serious and sisterly, and the good sense i 
and good feeling which dictated her counsels ; 
and he especially liked a tacit understanding j 
they had that neither spoke in the same way | 
with any one else. It would have been 
pleasant, even if always serious and matter- 
of-fact ; but now and then these conferences 
were illuminated by a musical laugh, a sweet 
smile, or a fascinating scolding. Watching 
the two together, one might have observed 
that Miss Andrews’ smile was always reflected 
in Dennys’ face. 

He smiled now. 

“ Put away your work,” he said, and let’s 
go out and have a prowl through the inner 
canals. I want to go to the Formosa and 
see the Santa Barbara. What is it that i 
Ouida says about her ? I always go to see 
what Ouida praises. I am so glad you like i 
her.” 

“ She’s got a soul in her body, and a nobly ; 
generous soul,” Miss Andrews said, putting 
her brushes away. “ They say that she pro- 
fesses to hate Americans ; but I mean to like 
her even if she should hate me.” 

“ Brava ! ” said Dennys. “ Now make haste, 
and we shall have time to walk up to the 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


241 


post-office and drop down the Grand Canal 
in time for our roasted mutton.” 

ril tell you a secret about our roasted 
mutton and beef, and all our roasts,” Miss 
Andrews whispered. “ They are first boiled 
to make that mild broth in which shredded 
cabbage is cooked for our soup, and then 
they are put into the oven and browned 
over for a roast. Fortunately our youthful 
appetites stop their career at that stage, or 
who knows what other changes they might 
go through ! ” 

She ran up-stairs in great good-humor to 
put on her hat. “ After all, he means nothing 
in looking at the girl,” she thought, thrusting 
a formidable spillone through hat-rim and 
braids. “ He sees in her merely a subject. 
I hope,” addressing her reflection in the 
glass, — “ I hope that you are not going to 
make a fool of yourself! ” 

If to be happy was to be a fool, then Miss 
Andrews was very foolish during the bright 
days which followed. Such wealth of un- 
daunted color, such an enchanting, sweet 
silence, full of life! Sometimes she and 
Dennys painted together out of doors in 
some little piazza, or on a quiet bridge, or in 
a disused boat. The girl caught on her can- 
16 


2 42 Autumn Leaves. 

vas the tip of a campanile isolated from the 
earth by a cloud of thick mist, with a dim 
line of roofs floating like a wreck beside it. 
The man painted a dark, round arch of 
massive stones, with the gay colors of a group 
of fruit-sellers seen on the water-steps 
beyond. 

“ We two represent earth and air,” he said. 
“ Some day we must try to unite them. I 
will aspire, and you must condescend.” 

If a dark thread ran through that bright 
web, it was woven there by Catina, who was 
growing into a ruby under Mr. Dennys’ 
brush. The young man painted from morn- 
ing till night, and Catina was his indoors 
subject. Every day she gave him an hour 
in the chamber at the top of the house, 
which he had chosen as a studio. They 
were frequently alone, though the aunt went 
up occasionally for propriety’s sake, or sent 
some one to open the door. She had perfect 
confidence in Mr. Dennys and, in fact, in Ca- 
tina ; for the girl told her every item of those 
interviews which both hoped were a courtship. 

“ Well, Catina, what has he done to-day? ” 
the Sor Rosa would ask eagerly, drawing her 
niece aside when she came down from a 
sitting. 


I 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


243 


“He patted me on the head,” Catina 
whispered, looking anxiously into her aunt’s 
face, as if to see how much patting on the 
head might mean. “And he called me 
‘Carina.’ ” 

“ Um ! ” murmured the aunt, nodding her 
head up and down thoughtfully. “ There is 
no harm in that. But be prudent. If thou 
art light he will not wish to marry thee. 
And yesterday he squeezed thy hand ? ” 

“ No,” said Catina, “he smoothed it softly, 
and said that it was pretty.” She lifted her 
hand as she spoke and gazed at it with a 
dreamy reverence. “ He was placing me, 
and seemed to notice it for the first time. 
He laid my hand on his — so, palm to palm — 
and looked at it. He said the nails are 
pretty.” 

“ And then ? ” the aunt prompted. 

“And then he told me to sit still, and 
went back to his easel.” 

“Thou didst not draw the hand back?” 

“No, I let it stay. It was he who let go.” 

“ I think,” said the Sor Rosa, after a mo- 
ment’s study, “that if he takes thy hand 
again, thou hadst better draw it gently back, 
after just one second ; and then perhaps hQ 
will wish to keep it.” 


Autumn Leaves, 


244 

Catina received the lesson with breathless 
earnestness, gazing at her aunt with large 
anxious eyes, childlike, yet passionate. 

Poor Catina! Her portrait was but half 
done, and already she adored the painter. 

It was no longer with her the question of 
having a good husband, of rising in the 
world, and dressing like a lady. Her one j 
thought was : Would this golden-bearded 
artist love her? She felt herself sinking 
away into dark chaos at the thought that 
he might go away and leave her. But a 
few weeks, and already there was a fever in 
her blood that burned her ruby color of 
cheek and lip to an intense flame, and height- 
ened the luster of those dark, appealing 
eyes. From dawn till sleep came at night 
he was her one thought. She studied to be 
at some window when he went out, to watch 
him as long as he was in sight, and again to 
watch for his return. She took loving care 
of his chamber, and passionately kissed his 
pillows when she made the bed. In the 
depths of her one poor little trunk was treas- 
ured a tiny box, where she hid golden and 
blonde hairs drawn from his comb and brush ; 
and an old glove he had bade her throw 
away was folded up in tissue paper and laid 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


245 


in rose-leaves. In her prayer-book, as a 
mark, was a slip of paper on which he had 
written to try a pen. It was her name in 
English. She had stood by and had seen 
him write it : “ Catherine.” 

She had at first been troubled about his 
intimacy with Miss Andrews ; but watching 
closely, she had seen no sentiment in it. 
There was a cool composure in their inter- 
course which did not at all agree with her idea 
of lovers, and she knew that they worked 
constantly when they were out together. 
She had seen them once, herself unseen, when 
her aunt had sent her out for a flask of wine. 
They were seated a little way apart, almost 
back to back, bent over their canvases and 
taking no notice of each other. Catina had 
lingered as long as she dared, peeping at 
them from behind a fruit-stand, her hair and 
eyes only visible above a bank of oranges. 
Then, she knew that Miss Andrews some- 
times opposed the painter, wanted one thing 
when he wanted another, and even scolded 
him — albeit gently. Surely, one who loved 
a man could not hold an opinion which was 
not shared by him ! 

What blissful hours she passed in that 
roof-chamber with its bare walls, tiled floor, 


246 


Autu7nn Leaves. 


and great blue-and-white cotton drapery put 
up to temper and shade the blaze of white 
sunshine ! The intent, beautiful face of the 
painter, the long looks that studied her from 
time to time, the silence, broken by some 
direction now and then, or by a murmured 
word of praise half-unconsciously uttered, 
sometimes by a caressing word which dropped 
like honey into her heart — how sweet they 
were ! Steeped through with love and fear, 
and melancholy and delight, as the air was 
steeped through by that glorious sunlight, 
all her life and the powers of her life became 
absorbed in the one thought : If he does not 
love me, I shall die ! 

The summer wore slowly away in this un- 
certainty. 

And Dennys ? He would have haughtily 
resented the insinuation that he could pos- 
sibly dream of marrying Sor Rosa’s niece, 
who made his bed, dusted his room, and 
waited on him at table. He would equally 
have resented an insinuation that he could 
dream of making love to her. He considered 
himself a gentleman, and quite above trifling 
with a girl. He liked the little thing. He 
admired her timid, earnest ways, the question- 
ing glances that were, he supposed, only a 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


247 


way she had with her eyes, the quick blush, 
the bird-like flutter. She was so child-like 
sometimes, that he saw no harm in patting 
her on the head, in smiling at her with a mur- 
mured Catina 7ma ! ” when she maneuvered 
to meet him on the stairs ; in petting her in 
a hundred ways. Or, perhaps, man-like, tak- 
ing pleasure in her beauty, he would not 
allow himself to believe that he was selfish. 
In fact, he gave the subject very little 
thought. 

Miss Andrews gave it a good deal of 
thought. 

“ I am going southward next week,” she 
announced at the table one evening in the 
beginning of September. There is a little 
chill in the air of Venice now which spoils 
the mornings and evenings. Besides, I am 
hungering and thirsting for trees. Who is 
for Sorrento ? ” 

But I can’t go for a month yet ! ” ex- 
claimed Dennys, at whom she had not looked. 

have only just finished the Ruby copy I 
had to give Catina, and there are a dozen out- 
door studies I want to make.” 

“ What is to prevent your making them ? ” 
Miss Andrews asked with cool surprise. 
“ You are not obliged to go.” 


248 


Autumn Leaves 


He bit his lip and remained silent. What 
is she angry about ? ” he asked himself ; and 
remained in a brown study till dinner was 
over. But when they left the table he fol- 
lowed her to the window. “ Do let’s make 
one more picture together before we go ! ” 
he begged. “ The days are warm yet. You 
know I don’t want to stay here after you go 
away, and I should have to tear myself away 
now. Let’s try that view up by the Frari.” 

She hesitated — and consented. After all, 
he means no harm, she thought for the hun- 
dredth time. I don’t believe that he suspects 
the girl is throwing herself at his head, and 
that she is really wild about him. “ I will 
stay to paint one picture more,” she said, 
‘‘ but only one. Have you quite finished 
with Catina ? ” 

“Yes, my Ruby is cut — a brilliant — and 
set and sold,” he said. “ And a pretty jewel 
she is. I half grudge her the copy, but I had 
promised it. I may buy it back.” 

Miss Andrews’ shoulders gave a somewhat 
impatient movement. 

The next morning they went out and found 
a large boat moored at the very spot where 
they wanted it, and they took possession and 
set up their easels. They had agreed not to 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


249 


look at each other’s pictures till they were 
nearly finished, and not even to guess 
what the other’s subject might be. They 
could not help seeing that both canvases 
were high and narrow, but that was all they 
knew. 

And it chanced that the pictures grew to 
be two mysteries, the solution of which was 
ardently longed for, with some haunting im 
pression of a deeper meaning in both their 
minds. Dennys painted a dark carved bal- 
cony over a darker portal. A veiled woman, 
entering, glanced back over her shoulder 
from the threshold. But instead of stopping, 
as his manner was, at this fragment of somber 
richness and mystery, he showed the palace 
corner climbing story above story to the 
light, and ending in a terrace that shone with 
sunshine like a beacon. And on the terrace 
stood a woman looking down. The figure 
was small against the sky, and wore a tiny 
crimson mantle round her shoulders, a rem- 
iniscence of the famous plush cape. 

Miss Andrews covered her lower canvas 
with fog — as in her first Venetian picture — 
and painted the lanthorn and half the dome 
of a church above. But instead of leaving 
them isolated there, she showed the vision- 


250 


Autumn Leaves, 


ary lower half of the dome beneath, and 
dimmer walls dropping to a mist-smothered 
arch and wet, blurred stair above the scarcely 
guessed-at glistening of still waters. 

They went out every day, and at length 
the day came when they should see each 
other’s pictures before going home. Dennys 
set his up before his companion and stood 
behind it, watching her face. 

“ How it climbs ! ” she said, after a minute 
of pleased contemplation. 

It is the apotheosis of our plush cape,” 
he said. “ Now, let me see ! ” and he came 
round behind where she sat, facing her can- 
vas. 

Ah ! it is as I said ! ” he cried at once. 
“ I have aspired, and you have condescended. 
We meet ! ” 

Feeling his hand on her shoulder and that 
he was bending over her, she looked quickly 
round, and just in time to catch upon her 
lips the kiss he meant for her cheek. 

There was an instant’s silence. Dennys 
stood upright, and Miss Andrews gave a 
frightened glance about to see if they were 
observed. Then, with an air of severity, she 
began to gather up her brushes. 

I beg your pardon ! ” Dennys said, with 


A Dove of St, Mark's. 251 

a laugh that betrayed confusion. “ I declare 
I had no time to consider. Besides, of course, 
I meant your cheek — for the first time.” 

“ I think that we had better be going 
home,” the lady remarked with dignity. “ I 
suppose you mistook me for a model.” 

The painter’s countenance fell. She had 
stepped out onto the landing while she spoke, 
and there was no opportunity to reply. Not 
a word was uttered as they walked to the 
steamer-landing, and sat side by side buzzing 
down to the Riva. The lower landing was 
two or three bridges above their house, and 
Dennys, watching his companion with side- 
long glances as they walked down, took 
courage from the color of her cheeks. 

I want you to let me tell the family 
something this evening — Francesca,” he said 
softly. 

^^Tell them what? ” with an affectation of 
great wonderment. 

That you and I are engaged to be mar- 
ried.” 

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed, turning her 
face away. 

They were at the house-door, which stood 
open. Catina had come down to open it for 
them, having seen them from the window. 


Autumn Leaves. 


252 

But they did not see her standing back in 
the dark shadow of the vestibule. 

“ One moment ! Dennys said, stopping 
at the lower stair. '' You are not angry with 
me, Miss Andrews ? ” 

“ If you allow me to forget your nonsense, 
I shall forget to be angry,” she replied, and 
touched lightly the hand he held out to her. 

Ah ! that was love ! Catina saw and knew 
it now. When had he looked so pleadingly 
at her ? That was love, and they were 
lovers ! 

An hour passed and the dinner-bell rang, 
but no Catina came to serve the table. They 
called in vain, scolded, and finally searched 
for her. She was found face downward on 
her bed, crying with toothache. She was 
subject to toothache and the excuse was 
accepted. She could eat nothing. All she 
asked was to be let alone ; and they let her 
alone. Later, at bedtime, when the cook 
brought her up some sort of remedy, she took 
it quietly. The cook slept in the same room, 
and was soon sound asleep. Before long all 
the house was quiet. 

Then, softly rising, Catina crept down- 
stairs to the garden, and went to its farthest 
corner where the oleanders were. There she 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


253 


could weep unheard, lying on the ground 
beside the dove's poor little grave. The air 
was damp and chilly ; but that was better 
than to suffocate with restrained sobs. At 
dawn she stole in again, and went to bed, 
trembling with cold, and with a real tooth- 
ache this time ; coughing, too, a little. 

Her aunt came to her and bade her stay 
in bed. “ You’ve got a cold,” she said. “ I 
will send you up some tisane. Keep your- 
self well covered, and try to get into a per- 
spiration.” 

Everybody at the breakfast-table asked for 
Catina, and everybody hoped that the child 
would soon be up. Oh ! it is nothing,” 
said the Sor Rosa. “ She suffers with her 
teeth.” 

Miss Andrews alone said nothing. Look- 
ing back from the head of the stairs the 
evening before, as she came in, she had 
caught a glimpse of Catina lurking in the 
darkness below ; and she felt a certain terror 
of this sudden disappearance. 

'' Now that our pictures are done, I am 
going at once,” she said to Dennys. ‘‘ I 
shall go to-morrow morning. Mrs. James 
and Jenny are going to Florence, so I shall 
have company so far.” 


254 


Autumn Leaves. 


Would he go or stay ? She almost trembled 
with suspense while awaiting his answer. 
He leaned on the rail beside her, and said 
nothing. 

“ If he stays, all is over between us ! ” she 
thought, and said aloud : Each one to his 
taste. There are those who would like to 
spend their lives in Venice. To me it would 
be like a dinner all sweets. Too much beauty 
and romance are demoralizing. One loses 
sight of principle, and thinks only of 
pleasure.” 

You’ve had tea for your breakfast, and it 
was too strong,” Dennys said. I’ve always 
observed that a strong cup of tea makes 
people very ascetic for a while. Now my 
coffee — the coffee is good here, you know 
— has inclined me to live and let live.” 

“ Let live ! ” — that was just what he had 
not done ; and she longed to tell him so. 
She felt an almost irresistible impulse to 
break out upon him indignantly. For the 
instant she almost disliked him. 

It requires a degree of asceticism to let 
live,” she said, in a constrained voice. “ We 
are all inclined to think, or wish to think, 
that what pleases us hurts no one else.” 

Before he could reply she was gone — gone 


A Dove of St. Markus. 


255 


in a whirlwind of resolution, prompt and un- 
compromising. 

“ I want to see Catina, if I may,” she said 
to the Sor Rosa. “ I know the best remedy 
in the world for toothache. It was given me 
by a Parsee doctor in London. Steep East- 
ern poppy-heads, and bathe the face with 
the hot extract. It is infallible. Can I eo 
up? ” 

Oh ! the signorina was too kind. Per- 
haps Gatina’s chamber was not in very good 
order. But if the signorina would ex- 


In fine. Miss Andrews found herself in a 
dim chamber, standing beside a bed where a 
little chalk copy of Catina lay on the pillow, 
looking up at her with large, shrinking eyes, 
the bed-cover held close under her chin. 
Where was the color, the smile, the bright- 
ness ? Where the gentle humility ? Doubt 
and questioning, not untouched by aversion, 
looked through those eyes. The lips ut- 
tered an inarticulate murmur which was 
neither welcome nor compliment, but merely 
a reluctant recognition of her presence. 

Miss Andrews talked on volubly of her in- 
fallible remedy till she got rid of the Sor 
Rosa, then leaned over the bed and smoothed 


Autumn Leaves. 


256 

back the sick girl’s tumbled hair. “ It isn’t 
toothache, Catina ! ” she whispered. 

Oh ! ” murmured Catina, with a look of 
fear. 

“ Is he to blame ? ” pursued her visitor. 

“ Oh, no ! I don’t know what you mean ! ” 
Catina panted, shrinking back. “ No one is 
to blame. I am foolish. I have caught a 
cold.” 

Did he ever kiss you ? ” Miss Andrews 
went on, ignoring the girl’s incoherent 
protest, and looking steadily into her 
eyes. 

The lids fell suddenly over them with two 
beautiful, dark-fringed curves on the pale 
cheeks. He had kissed her once : a kiss re- 
membered and wrapped away in her heart of 
hearts, not confessed even to her aunt. It 
was a light kiss on her red cheek, given at 
the moment when he had successfully ar- 
ranged her Eastern head-dress, with its ruby 
dropping on the forehead in a ring of black 
hair. It had been more an impulsive expres- 
sion of artistic delight than a personal caress, 
and had been quickly repented of. Catina 
had more than once tried to study out the 
real meaning of his quick change of manner, 
the “ I ought not to have done that ! ” and 


A Dove of St. Markus. 257 

the almost coldness which he had maintained 
during the rest of the sitting. 

‘‘ I do not know what you mean,” she 
said to Miss Andrews. “ Nobody kisses 
me.” 

It was enough. He had kissed her ! 

The visitor rose with a brief word of fare- 
well, and went to her own room to prepare 
her trunks. She was too busy to go down 
to luncheon, and when she appeared at the 
dinner-table, it was in traveling-dress, with 
hand-bag, wrap and cushion. 

Whose trunk is that ? ” she demanded of 
the servant who descended the stair before 
her with one on his back. 

“ The Signor Dennys’s, Signorina.” 

So he knew that she would set out that 
night instead of waiting till morning ! 

“ I can go into another compartment, you 
know,” he said, when she expressed her sur- 
prise. 

She laughed lightly. After all, his devo- 
tion pleased her and she would not condemn 
him unheard. 

Dinner was over, the good-bys were said, 
and the gondola was at the door. 

“ Say good-by to Catina for me,” Dennys 
said, “ and give her this to buy some little 

17 


Autumn Leaves. 


258 

trinket with. Tell her that if ever she wishes 
to sell her picture I will buy it.” 

Miss Andrews could see no sign of regret 
or of conscious embarrassment in him. 
There was only kindness, and a careless 
generosity. 

Then out into a world white and splendid 
with moonlight or velvet-black with shadows, 
where they took the short route through in- 
ner canals to the station. Both glanced up 
at the house as they passed out in front of it, 
and saw a small, white-robed figure leaning 
from the uppermost window. 

“You don’t suppose that Catina has got 
out of bed to look after us ! ” exclaimed 
Dennys in surprise. 

“Why should she?” his companion re- 
plied, turning her head away. Catina, trem- 
bling with cold and with agitation, leaned 
from the window to watch the gondola till it 
returned to the Riva and disappeared under 
a bridge ; then she went shivering back to 
bed again. The hand under her cheek held 
the gold napoleon that Dennys had sent her, 
held it so close that both cheek and palm 
must have taken the print of the coin. There 
was no feeling in her heart which could make 
her refuse or resent a gift of money from 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 259 

him. He had not wanted her, that was all. 
Nobody was to blame. She did not blame 
even herself, since she had not betrayed that 
unconsidered kiss of his to the lady. She 
was simply humbled and broken. Her 
humiliation was greater even than her sorrow. 
She seemed to herself like a nut-shell or an 
orange-peel, thrown away and knowing itself 
worthless ; and she wondered that they took 
so much pains with her. She did not want 
the doctor they called presently. They need 
not take the trouble to sit with her, nor to 
send her up so many dainties. She could 
not eat, her throat felt so tightened. Mean- 
time she coughed more and more. 

“I am going just as mother did,” she 
thought. It is better so, for I am good 
for nothing here. Nobody wants me. lam 
a foolish girl.” 

For the two artists it was southward ho ! 
and still farther southward as the weather 
grew colder, till winter found them in Capri. 
They were lovers now, plighted and acknowl- 
edged, and as happy as birds. Perhaps they 
would marry in the spring and go to Russia, 
to Norway, who knows? to the North Pole. 
All things seemed possible, so full was their 
delight in life and in each other. 


26 o 


Autum^i Leaves. 


Only now and then the woman saw the 
shadow of a skeleton at her feast, of a serpent 
in her paradise. Gatina and the kiss were 
not annihilated, but only hidden ; and out of 
their unacknowledged existence rose a fitful 
jealousy and doubt, like a miasma. Those 
beautiful models troubled her, for they all 
took a fancy to Dennys’ golden beard and 
handsome face. Besides, they all had the 
same ambition : to marry an artist ; perhaps 
a milord ; at very least an artist. Some 
of their former friends were now great 
ladies. 

And one day of early spring, going up to 
the terrace of their boarding-house, which 
they sometimes used as an out-door studio, 
she caught Dennys in interesting colloquy 
v/ith one of these girls. His amused and 
penetrating gaze and the girl’s coquettish 
attitude explained why they immediately 
ceased speaking when Miss Andrews ap- 
peared. A slight confusion showed through 
their silence. 

“You can go,” Dennys said then. “I 
don’t think I shall want you to-morrow. One 
more sitting will do.” 

The girl went at once, and he turned to 
face Miss Andrews, who held a letter in her 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 


261 


hand. “ What has happened ? ” he asked 
hastily. “ How strange you look ! 

“ Catina, your Venetian model is dead ! ” 
she said abruptly, and, passing him by, she 
took a seat near the parapet and looked off 
over the sea, her brows frowning. 

Dennys uttered an exclamation of regret. 
“ Poor little thing ! I was afraid that it 
might end so. She was as fragile as my 
little dove, that died of nothing. Do you re- 
member my dove of Saint Mark’s, Frances?” 

‘‘ I did not mean to tell you if I could help 
it,” she said, making a movement of repul- 
sion as he came nearer to her. “ I said to 
myself that you meant no harm, and that, 
for her sake as well as for your own, I would 
remain silent ; unless I should see you trifling 
with some other girl. Now listen to what I 
can tell you of Catina.” 

She spared him nothing. All the little 
signs that a woman’s glance detects, the girl 
watching him from behind a curtain, hover- 
ing about with any excuse when he was pre- 
sent, managing to meet him on the stair or 
at the door ; the trembling hand when she 
served him, the wandering attention when 
she heard him speak, the glimpse of Catina 
in the corridor when they came home that 


262 


Autumn Leaves, 


evening, and her subsequent disappearance, 
the interview she had herself sought, and the 
little white figure that gazed after them when 
they left Venice. 

‘‘To me, love and all the signs of love are 
sacred,” she said in a voice that trembled. 
“ I give no doubtful word or glance to any 
man ; and if a man prefers me, he sees no 
flattered vanity or coquetry in me. It is yes 
or no with me. I would despise myself if I 
gave hope to one I could not love. It is a 
prostitution of the soul, and it soils a man 
even as it soils a woman. I can admire 
the beauty of a man, and remain as ice to 
him. He pleases my artistic taste, but he 
wins no other glance from me. He cannot 
touch my hands, if he were an Apollo. And 
such as I am, my husband must be, or de- 
ceive me for a time into believing him such. 
I want no man as husband whom I would 
be afraid to trust with a pretty chamber- 
maid. Such a man should marry a woman 
who would flirt with her coachman. There 
are enough such women. You can find them 
anywhere. Good-by.” 

She had stood turned away from him while 
speaking; but at the last word she turned as 
if to go, and flung a glance at him. 


A Dove of St. Mark's. 263 

Without making a sound, Dennys had sunk 
into a chair, his arm on the parapet, his head 
sunk against his arm. His face was pale and 
his eyes closed. I never thought,” he said 
faintly. 

Her face showed softening, but she steeled 
her voice. 

My letter says that Catina left you the 
copy of your Ruby picture ; and there is a 
case down-stairs directed to you.” 

“ Never let me see it ! ” Dennys exclaimed, 
starting up. '‘Take it, if you will. Never 
let me see it ! ” 

His head sank down again. " I don’t 
blame you,” he said. “ I suppose it is a 
childish excuse to say I meant no harm. A 
man ought to mean something, one way or 
another. Well, I am punished ! ” 

His face sank into his hands. 

The woman looked at him ; and since he 
judged himself, she ceased to judge him. 
Slowly, as if not conscious of being drawn, 
she turned, and step by step went nearer to 
him, her face grown soft and pitiful, grown 
humble even. No woman will blame the 
man she loves when he blames himself ! 

Softly nearer, till her hand rested on his 
shoulder. 


264 


Autumn Leaves. 


ISABELLA REGNANT. 

Columbus gone ! Haste ! Bring him back 
to me ! 

Rather I fling my crown into the sea 
Than he, rejected, pleading all in vain, 

Shake from his pilgrim feet the dust of 
Spain ! 

Ah, Ferdinand ! The warrior’s art you know. 
And state-craft, and the subtle, tender show 
Of watchfulness that steals a woman’s heart ! 
But there’s a nobler science, finer art 
Than gallantry, or state-craft. There’s a field 
Of battle fought with neither sword, nor 
shield, 

Where souls heroic bleed invisibly, 

And falter not ; for down the watchful sky 
A whisper bids them onward to the end ; 
And their own echoes answer: “To the 
end ! ” 

To such, though to the glory round us shed 
Of right divine to rule they bow the head. 
Our lives must seem, with all that they have 
won. 


Isabella Regnant. 


265 

Like some small planet’s transit o’er the sun. 
They seek a prize greater than that we see 
Where red Alhama lifts the Hand and Key, 
And loftier walls to scale, or batter down. 
Than those that o’er the rushing Darro 
frown. 

A visionary is he ? Marked you how 
Straight line on line ruled all that studious 
brow ? 

Guessed you no sovereign text engraven 
there 

’Twixt the wide-swelling temples’ silvered 
hair? 

A visionary ! No great plan on earth 
To which fore-seeing minds have given birth 
Was e’er accomplished but some heart of 
stone 

Found it impossible — till it was done! 

Bring me my jewels — necklace, clasp and 
ring, 

Bracelets and broaches, every shining thing ! 
Let not a single pearl roll out of sight 
Of all my Orient strings of milky light ; 

Miss not the heads in onyx finely wrought ; 
Withhold no sun-bright diamond. There’s 
naught 


266 


Autumn Leaves. 


Of cunning gold-work, nor of radiant stone 

Too precious to help pave the path whereon, 

Beyond the unknown waters, vast and dun. 

The Cross shall travel with the westering 
sun ! 

Bring my Castilian gems whose wedded 
shine 

Two kingdoms joined their hands to place 
in mine. 

Ah, my strong Castile and my brave Leon ! 

I brought no lamb in fold to Aragon ! 

What makes a queen ! Not jewels, though 
they glow 

Like sunset on the high Sierra’s snow, 

Nor broidered robe, though its fine artist- 
thought 

Excel Our Lady’s velvet train, gold-wrought. 

That sparkles in her wake seven meters long 

When out they bear her through the praying 
throng. 

To queenship these are trivial things, and 
low. 

Through her the nation’s better self should 
show 

In larger welcome of brave thoughts and 
men, 

In sympathies that reach beyond the ken 


Isabella Regnant. 267 

Of humbler lots, drawing from far and near 
All that of virtue is most high and clear, 

In sole ambition to endow the state 
With every glory of the truly great. 

That she a model of fair order serve. 

Mindful no step of hers from order swerve ; 
To God a little lowlier bowing down 
In that her brow has dared to wear a crown ! 

Behold my thought of what a queen should 
be! 

God and His saints make such a queen of 
me ! 

Something I see in omens — this man’s name — 
The saint from whom his fair baptismal came 
(A giant who had served the great arch-foe), 
Had for his penance that whoe’er would go 
Across a certain ford both deep and wide. 

On his broad shoulders raised should pass 
the tide. 

Once a fair child besought him: '‘Take me 
o’er!” 

But as the giant on his shoulders bore 
The little one, ever it heavier grew. 

Till scarce his strength sufficed to bear it 
through ; 


268 


Autumn Leaves. 


And when, all trembling, he had passed the 
ford, 

Lo ! The fair infant was the Blessed Lord ! 

And (still the name!) when storm-clouds 
black unfurled 

And bursting fountains had submerged the 
world. 

O’er the dread waves no rower could with- 
stand. 

It was a dove they loosed to find the land ! 

This Christopher Columbus, then, may claim 

Something of warrant by his very name ! 

He waits without ? Invite him here to me ; 

And mark you show no dubious courtesy ! 

Senor, my jewels ! All that’s mine to give 

Save my most fervent prayers that you may 
live 

To come again for such a coronet 

As never yet on human brow was set ; 

And a queen’s promise that, howe’er it end. 

You shall find firm protectress and true friend 

In Isabella, sovereign of Castile ! 

Should your great task grow heavier, till you 
feel 


Isabella Regnant. 269 

Your strength and hope and courage almost 
faint, 

Remember Christopher, your guardian saint. 
Struggling, half fallen in the swollen ford. 
And think, like him, you bear the Blessed 
Lord 1 


270 


Autumn Leaves. 


AN EVENING IN ROME. 

Mrs. Leighton, a pretty widow of thirty- 
five, sat at a western window of her salon 
that overlooked Rome from Monte Mario to 
the Palatine. Her hands were folded. She 
seemed to be admiring the landscape. At 
the other window Miss Lucy Jackson, a 
faded young woman, sat knitting blue wool 
into some shape. Lucy was a poor relation. 

The gorgeous February sunshine, slipping 
under striped awnings, laid a golden scarf 
across each lady’s lap, and crept toward the 
tea-table farther back in the room, where 
Mrs. Leighton’s niece, Juliet, sat waiting for 
a belated tea-urn, and entertaining an elderly 
young man, Mr. Armitage. 

“ Lest you should be faint before the hot 
water comes,” she said, “ shall I help you to 
an elephant? or a bear? or a few pigs?” 
turning over some biscottini with a large 
spoon. “ I have eaten up all the lions and 
tigers. They are my favorite beverage. 
Here’s a nice little rhinoceros. And, oh, Mr. 
Armitage, what is the plural of fez? None 
of us know\ One fez, two — what?” 


An Evening in Rome. 271 

“ Hanged if I know.” 

“ You deserve the whole menagerie for not 
knowing more than we do.” 

The gentleman rested his arms on the 
table, and smiled into the girl’s lovely 
sparkling face. “I’m a man of peace,” he 
said. “ Give me something that doesn’t 
bite.” 

“ Are we to have any tea ? ” asked Mrs. 
Leighton, casting a glance over her shoulder. 

Lucy Jackson stopped knitting and spoke: 

“The Acqua Marcia has been shut off 
again, and Jane sent Mario for some Acqua 
Felice. He had to go all the way to Piazza 
San Bernardo. I told her that you had said 
you wanted Acqua di Trevi the next time 
Acqua Marcia failed. So Mario went down 
the Via della Stamperia for Acqua di Trevi. 
That is the reason why tea is late.” 

Ceasing to speak, Miss Lucy seemed to 
have turned off a faucet of words. 

Mrs. Leighton gazed at her cousin in a 
mild wonderment at her long speech. In 
her own comfortable consciousness of secure 
fortune, she never suspected that the only 
peaceful moments poor Lucy knew were 
those in which she could fancy that she was 
doing some little service in return for the 


272 


Autumn Leaves. 


food which she consumed — in an apologetic 
manner, sitting on the edge of her chair. 

With the tardy bolero entered a second 
gentleman, all about him an exquisite fra- 
grance which escaped from a tissue-papered 
parcel held in his left hand. He was a dark, 
proud-looking young man, and had one of 
those serious Roman faces behind which 
lurks so much of humor and gayety. He 
saluted the ladies with great ceremony. 

“ I took the liberty, as I came up the 

Spanish steps '' he said, and opened his 

parcel, disclosing flowers, and filling the air 
with sweetness. 

He offered Juliet a beautiful bunch of 
violets. Looking at her, his face changed. 
He did not smile ; but there was a brief, 
swift illumination behind the mask of his 
perfectly controlled features. 

Two full pink roses were presented to 
Mrs. Leighton, and one to the poor rela- 
tion. 

Mr. Armitage went to carry Mrs. Leighton 
a cup of tea, and stood glowering at her 
roses. I am a stupid donkey ! ” he said. 

When I come here I think so much of my 
own pleasure that I forget the pleasure of 
others. I need a tyrannical woman to civilize 


A7i Evening in Rome. 


273 

me,” — his voice softened, — “ or a gentle one 
to forgive me.” 

She waved his apologies aside with a smile. 
“ See the birds collecting on the steeple 
there,” she said. It will soon be black 
with birds of every sort. At sunset their 
leader will give the signal, and they will all 
fly off in a cloud to some grove where they 
sleep. I think they must be divided into 
companies, each with its captain.” 

“Are you going to the reception at the 
German club to-night, signore?” Juliet 
asked the Italian. 

“ I received the invitation but an hour 
ago,” he said. “And I don’t understand if 
fancy dress is necessary. The note was 
not definite.” 

“ It is not necessary. Mr. Armitage says 
so. He will wear a swallow-tail coat, a 
glittering expanse of bosom, and a white 
cravat with two little bows. He will seem 
to crackle with every unconsidered move- 
ment, will have only one hinge in his body, 
and his face will express a courageous and 
good-natured resignation to being made un- 
comfortable in the noble cause of good 
form.” 

“ Signor Armitage is a good fellow,” said 
18 


274 


Autumn Leaves. 


the Italian, earnestly. He was very kind 
to me in London.” 

They were interrupted by Mr. Armitage 
taking leave. 

Aunt Amy,” said Juliet, when the door 
closed, “ here we have known these two 
gentlemen all winter and last summer, and 
only now I learn that they were acquainted 
years ago in London.” 

“ Did you know his family, signore ? ” Mrs. 
Leighton asked, with interest. 

“ Only his sister, signora. I gave her les- 
sons in Italian. I had classes in London. 
She is a very grand lady.” 

Mrs. Leighton’s countenance fell. “ You 
gave lessons in Italian ? ” she echoed, 
faintly. 

“Yes, madam. I was studying to fit my- 
self for the consular career ; and it was neces- 
sary that I should know English. I had no 
fortune. So I spent three years in London, 
teaching.” 

He spoke with a very proud dignity. 

Juliet interposed in haste. “Just fancy, 
Aunt Amy, a man studying for years to fit 
himself for an office ! Why, signore, in 
America we just elect, or appoint him off- 
hand, without the least preparation, and 


275 


An Evening in Rome, 

there is a certain magic property in the will 
of the people, as so expressed, which instantly 
I confers all the necessary official graces. It 
i is a sort of secular ordination.” 

When their visitor had left them, and 
I.ucy had gone out to post some letters, 
Mrs. Leighton said, “ I’m glad that Lucy 
doesn’t wish to go with us to-night, for she 
might hear of an arrival that I saw in the 
hotel lists in this morning’s paper. I tore 
the paper, lest she should see it. Mr. Mark 
Alden is at the Costanza. You were too 
young to know about that affair. Fifteen 
years ago Lucy was a pretty girl of eighteen, 
and engaged to Mark Alden. Suddenly they 
separated, and Mark went out West. After 
a while a girl-friend of Lucy’s followed him 
with her family ; and a year later we heard 
that they were married. Lucy neither 
lamented nor explained ; but, like some one 
Dr. Holmes tells of, she quietly turned a 
» deep yellow with jaundice. Since she came 
here she has told me that the girl Mark Alden 
married was the person who made the trouble 
and deceived him. He wrote to Lucy as soon 
as he knew the truth, and asked her forgive- 
ness. She answered his letter kindly, bidding 
him forgive his wife and live in peace with 


276 


Autumn Leaves. 


her. She has never heard a word directly 
from him since, but has, of course, often seen 
his name in the newspapers. His silver-mine 
has made a great man of him. I am sure 
she feels as if there were yet some very sacred 
and tender link between them. For them to 
meet would be a complete disillusion to both. 
Lucy has grown poor while Mark has grown 
rich ; and she looks older than she need. All 
her life since they parted has hung like a 
dusty weeping willow over her one poor little 
moss-grown romance.” 

Miss Jackson appeared, putting an end to 
her cousin’s confidences. She was looking 
pleased. “ Somebody has written me a let- 
ter,” she said. “ It was left with the porter. 
I am going to my room.” 

“ Wait a minute, Lu ! ” J uliet cried. “ And 
come here, both of you, to the window. 
Come with your eyes downcast. Take your 
purses in your hands to show to the new 
moon, as the Turks do, asking her to fill them 
full of money as she fills her globe with light. 
Look at the sky low down, toward St. Peter’s, 
just beside that tree on the horizon.” 

The west was all golden ; only one carat 
finer, a slender crescent hung there, softly 
scintillating. 


An Evening in Rome. 277 

“ Behold the lady of many names ! ” Juliet 
exclaimed, theatrically : Pindar s ‘ Eye of 
Night,’ Horace’s ‘ Queen of Silence,’ Isis, 
Astarte, Selene, Diana, Venus, Juno, Miletta, 
Alilat, the sister and wife of the sun and the 
mother of Peruvian Incas. In her warehouses 
the common sense of ninety-nine hundredths 
of the human race is sealed up in jars counter- 
signed with their names.” 

“Why, Juliet, where did you get that rig- 
marole ? ” Mrs. Leighton exclaimed. 

“ Out of an encyclopedia,” the girl con- 
fessed, with a slight collapse of style. “ And 
now, ladies, by the grace of Diana, we are 
going to have a golden month.” 

“Juliet,” her aunt said, when they were 
again alone, “ I must speak to you seriously 
about Mr. Armitage. It is wrong to keep 
him in suspense. I have no objection to 
Signor Castiglione. All I want is that you 
should make a choice.” . 

“You seem to forget,” Juliet remarked, 
“ that neither of these gentlemen has asked 
me to choose him.” 

“They only wait for a chance, my dear.” 

“And besides,” Juliet said, mournfully, 
“ there seems to be an insuperable obstacle 
in the way of my marrying anybody. Not 


Autumn Leaves. 


278 

that I dislike gentlemen. Didn’t I adore 
poor papa, and let Brother Tom impose upon 
me ? I have even thought of some nice gen- 
tleman, the first time I saw him, that he 
would be a beautiful person to have about 
the house, bothering, and being made com- 
fortable, and buying opera-tickets, while one 
knits silk hose for him. But the moment 
one of them shows the least sign of thinking 
that I would be a nice person to have about 
his house, then I hate him. I like Mr. Armi- 
tage when he doesn’t gaze.” 

“ I never heard you speak of Mr. Armitage 
except in gibes,” Mrs. Leighton said, coldly. 

“ Oh ! you exaggerate. Aunt Amy. I only 
said, that day when somebody had been talk- 
ing of kindred spirits, and he heaved such a 
deep sigh, — you all heard him ; everybody 
heard him, — I only said that he acted like — 
something that begins with an f.” 

The Leighton party made a handsome 
group as they stood under the chandelier be- 
fore going out that evening. Mrs. Leighton 
in gray, with some pearls and Signor Castig- 
lione’s roses, looked exquisitely delicate ; 
and Juliet in a silver-threaded gauze, with 
her bouquet of violets, and a silver crescent 
lifting its diamond points out of her dark 


An Evening in Rome. 279 

hair, was a lovely hint of moonlight. Mr. 
Nordhoff, their escort, was a brilliant torero 
in a costume of violet and silver that had 
been worn by a titled espada in the days 
when noblemen fought in the ring. 

But you should have your hair in a pug,” 
Juliet said to him. “ All the toreros we saw 
in Spain had their hair in a pug. Lucy will 
lend you a switch.” 

Lucy had been very odd all that evening. 
She complained of a headache, which ac- 
counted for her feverish cheeks. At Juliet’s 
appeal she started up excitedly and began 
to pull the hair-pins out of her hair. “ I 
never wore a switch in my life ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “ See if this isn’t my own hair, 
Mr. Nordhoff. Please to pull that braid. 
Pull harder ! It won’t come off. — How can 
you talk so, Juliet ! ” 

Apologies, assurances, and compliments 
were offered in profusion, and the three, 
somewhat disconcerted, hastened away. 

A man was talking with the porter when 
they went down-stairs, and he stepped aside 
for them to pass, standing in shadow. He 
was a notably large man, wore a broad- 
brimmed hat that concealed his forehead, 
and was enveloped in a large cloak, one cor- 


28 o 


Autumn Leaves. 


ner of which, thrown over his shoulder, hid 
the lower part of his face. 

'‘He looks like a brigand,” Juliet whis- 
pered. 

Mrs. Leighton laughed softly as she settled 
into a corner of their carriage. 

“ I pity the brigand who goes within reach 
of Lucy’s scissors,” she said. “ She has a 
pair of long, sharp-pointed scissors that she 
carries in a sheath at her side when we travel, 
puts under her bolster at night, and takes in 
her hand when she goes to the door to speak 
to a beggar. She will have bolted the door 
by this time, and laid those scissors out on 
the table.” 

Lucy had not bolted the door ; and the 
brigand who had hidden his face from them 
in the vestibule was at that moment in their 
anteroom. 

“No matter about my name,” he said to 
the servant. “ Miss Jackson expects me. 
Look out for my hat and cloak. I will open 
the door for myself.” 

He walked into the salon without cere- 
mony, and shut the door firmly behind him. 

Lucy was standing under the chandelier, 
her face very white. She did not move a 
step to meet her visitor. 


An Evening in Rome, 281 

Good evening, Mr. Alden,” she said, as 
quietly as if she had seen him an hour before. 
“ I got the note you left. Won’t you take 
this chair ? I don’t think you will like the 
low one.” 

She gave but a glance in answer to his 
eager look, and just brushed with her slender 
cold fingers the hand her visitor extended, 
then seated herself with the table between 
them. He accepted the chair she indicated, 
sat down, and looked into the fire. And 
there was silence. 

Even without his brigand cloak and hat, 
Mr. Alden was an imposing figure. He was 
tall, had a great beard and mustache, black 
streaked with white, thick hair that stood up, 
a decided cast of features, and an appearance 
of great muscular strength. His fine broad- 
cloth, watch-chain of flexible gold ribbon, 
and two large diamonds that blazed in his 
cravat and on his hand, testified to his 
wealth. 

A carpet-knight, brought up, or inoculated 
later in life, with a knowledge of all the small 
social proprieties, while ignorant of the larger 
ones, would have found something to smile 
at in Mr. Mark Alden. Nevertheless, he was 
the bozzetto of a true gentleman. 


282 


Autumn Leaves. 


After a moment of silence he looked across 
the table at Miss Lucy. There was a frown 
which might have meant only perplexity, on 
his heavy brows. 

“ You don’t look well Lu — Miss Jackson,” 
he said, tilting his chair back on two legs, 
and immediately restoring it to four. Don’t 
you enjoy good health ? ” 

She was sitting pale and prim, her eyes 
fixed on her folded hands. 

“ Oh, yes ! ” she became sprightly all at 
once. “ I’ve got a cold, that’s all. How do 
you like Rome ? ” 

He betrayed no enthusiasm. 

“ From the little that I have seen, I should 
say that it is a fine city, but rather mixed up. 
What I like best is the solid old buildings. 
I like things that last, especially houses and 
friendships. I’m rather solidly built myself ; 
and I never let a friend slip but once. Well, 
I paid dear for that.” 

“ I wish that you had come in earlier, so as 
to see Cousin Amy,” Miss Lucy struck in, 
all of a flutter. “She and Juliet have but 
just gone out. The German club gives a re- 
ception in honor of the musician Franz Liszt ; 
and they were invited.” 

“ I’m in no hurry to see Mrs. Leighton,” 


An Evening in Rome. 283 

was the none too courteous response. But 
weren’t you invited?” 

Mr. Alden’s hair seemed to bristle up 
threateningly as he put the question. At 
the tone of it, to the poor lonely spinster it 
seemed as if an angel guard had suddenly 
surrounded her for protection and defense. 

Oh ! yes, I was invited. But my silk dress 
is a little frayed.” 

Oh, Lucy ! ” exclaimed her visitor. 

“ Is Mrs. Alden in Rome?” she asked, 
hastily. 

Mrs. Alden ! ” he echoed. “ What Mrs. 
Alden ? ” 

“ Why, your wife,” said Lucy, almost 
pettishly. 

“My wife! Didn’t you know? she died 
two years ago. She’s better off,” — he low- 
ered his voice, — “ and so am I. Did you think 
that I should come all the way to Rome to 
see you if my wife were alive ? I should 
have come a year ago, but my daughter — I 
had only one child — was sick of consumption. 
I could neither leave nor take her. She was 
a good child. I did my best to keep her ; but 
she died and left me all alone.” Mr. Alden’s 
diamond ring flashed like a meteor as he 
brushed two tears off his beard and ar- 


284 


Autumn Leaves. 


rested the progress of two others down his 
cheeks. 

My poor boy ! ” cried Miss Lucy, turn- 
ing suddenly toward him with love and com- 
passion in her face. 

It was what she had sometimes called him 
when they were young lovers together. 
Whatever displeased or hurt him, he was 
always her “ poor boy ’’ to be comforted, 
reassured and encouraged. He was poor 
indeed in those days, and Lucy’s rich family 
snubbed him ; and standing between these 
two fires of purse-pride and manhood-pride, 
the faithful girl had got many a scorch from 
both. 

Now, at sound of that old title, Mark 
Alden’s face lighted up. 

“So that is what was the matter!” he 
said, rising, with a pleasant laugh, “ Cheer 
up, little woman. It’s better late than 
never.” 

Meantime the two other ladies had reached 
the palace where the German club had an 
apartment, gone up the wide stair, brilliant 
and fragrant with lights and flowers, saluted 
their friends, and been presented to the Abate 
Liszt. 

The gray-haired musician sat at the head 


An Evening m Rome. 


2S5 


of a large salon next the dance-room, his arm- 
chair surrounded by a constantly changing 
group of admirers. Watching this man, one 
could understand something of that social 
idolatry which everywhere surrounded him. 
No one knew better than he how to make the 
ideal the real. He had a quick poetical appre- 
ciation of any charm or grace in those he met. 
He would turn in any public place at the 
sound of a musical voice, or a graceful, or 
witty remark. He believed gloriously in 
genius ; and, while receiving every homage in 
the most aristocratic circles, paid his own 
deepest homage to the chosen ones of Nature 
rather than of Fortune. Often seduced by 
the temptations of the world, he ever re- 
turned weeping to the temple of that Infinite 
Deity who was to him the source and soul of 
all harmony. 

Mr. Armitage was carried off to dance with 
a Pansy all purple velvet and gold-colored 
satin. Mrs. Leighton had a dowager corner, 
but a rosebud court. Mr. Nordhoff pointed 
out people to Juliet. 

“Who is that monstrously large person 
with short hair and a black toga? Is she a 
man, or is he a woman ? ” 

“ That is Madame Helwig.’’ 


286 


Autumn Leaves. 


** And the pretty lady in red velvet ? ” 

“ Princess , sister of the King of Wir- 

temberg.” 

“ Now, my son, go and dance,” she said to 
him, presently. “ I cannot dance in a crowd. 
Signor Castiglione is coming to speak to me.” 

“Have you seen the moonlight room?” 
the Italian asked. 

“ I’ve had only a glimpse. Shall we go 
and see it ? ” 

Nearly all one side of one of the large 
salons was covered by a canvas representing 
the finest view in Venice. It was a night 
view ; the full moon of the canvas had been 
made translucent, and a lamp set behind it. 
There was no other light in the room. Only 
a narrow line shone in from outside below 
each closed portiera. There was no furni- 
ture, except some sofas and chairs around 
the walls. 

The painting was alive with all the glow 
of Venice. One looked up the Grand Canal 
and the Giudecca. The water and the sky 
were blue ; and finely wrought palaces, breath- 
ing domes, and soaring campanile glowed, or 
gloomed between them. The gondolas ap- 
peared to float, the awnings to stir, and the 
enchanting dance-music from the next room 


An Evening in Rome. 


287 

seemed to issue from one of those many- 
piliared gothic-arched balconies. 

The Italian sang softly, — 

“ Vien meco a navigar, a navigar, a navigar,” 

with a smiling gesture of invitation. 

“ Very well ! But where shall we go, sig- 
nore ? To the Lido ? Or up to Torcello ? ” 

“ Down the long river of life, O queen of 
violets! Hand-in-hand down to the sea 
where time ends.” 

It was not long before a portiera was 
pushed aside, and a couple waltzed smoothly 
into and round the room. The lady wore 
white satin, the gentleman was a blood-red 
Mephistopheles. They took no notice of 
the two seated there, but circled round and 
round, as if bewitched, absorbed in each 
other. The satin grew ghost-like in shady 
corners, or glimmered silvery in the moon. 
When they passed a door, a splash of vivid 
red came out in the gentleman’s costume. 
And still they revolved, absorbed in each 
other. They were a famous artist and his 
wife. 

Signor Castiglione resumed their inter- 
rupted conversation. am happy, Juliet,” 
he said. “ You have made me happy.” 

‘‘ But remember,” she said, rising, and 


288 


Autumn Leaves. 


holding up a warning finger, “ we are to be- 
have reasonably, like two good friends who 
can like each other very, very much without 
consigning their wits to the storehouses of 
the moon. And promise me «;ol<-mnly, now, 
that you will never gaze at me. It gives a 
man such a turned-wrong-side-out appear- 
ance.” 

“ Stay, and let me practise flash-glances,” 
he begged. It is so hard to get my eyes 
away. I must practise.” 

“No; some one is coming. It is Aunt 
Amy and Mr. Armitage. Let us fly ! ” 

Mephistopheles, still holding the Psyche 
he had caught, followed them as they 
went. 

“ I assure you, Mrs. Leighton, that I am 
in earnest,” Mr. Armitage was saying. 
“ What should I want of a girl who would 
make my life a constant dancing-jig of empty 
pleasures? I’ve had my fling, and now I 
want peace and real happiness. The very 
air about you is sweet and restful. I thought 
you understood.” 

Again the portiera was lifted, and a laugh- 
ing group entered, leading captive the Abate. 
It was known that he always took a brief re- 
pose after eating ; and they had brought him 


An Evening in Rome, 289 

from the supper-table to this quiet retreat. 
Was not the beloved Maestro the master of 
them all ? Should he be less than at home 
while he was their charge ? He should not 
lose his nap. 

He laughingly sank into the sofa to which 
they conducted him, suffered the ladies to 
cover him with their light evening wraps, 
and shut his eyes when they withdrew. The 
music ceased for a while, and only a low 
murmur of conversation was heard for fifteen 
minutes. Then the musician rose. 

I dreamed,” he said, when the company 
met him, “ that I saw two stars, one red and 
the other silver, moving around in the same 
orbit, and blissfully whirling themselves into 
one. 

The gay hours flew till morning; it was 
four o’clock when Mrs. Leighton and Juliet 
were set down at their own door. To their 
surprise, Lucy was sitting up for them. 

I kept a stick of wood on the fire, for I 
thought you might be chilly,” she said. 

And I have got a cup of chocolate for 
you.” 

She was as smiling and confident as if the 
house were her own. Instead of trying to 
save wood, she gave the coals an extravagant 

19 


290 


Autumn Leaves, 


poke. Instead of v/aitingtill she was spoken 
to, she talked freely. Instead of sitting on 
the edge of her chair, she leaned back in it, 
quite at her ease. She was rosy, excited, 
pretty.” 

“ Dear me ! ” thought Mrs. Leighton ; '' I 
hope poor Lucy isn’t going crazy. She has 
seemed morbid for some time.” 

“ I don’t see how you kept awake, sitting 
here all alone,” she said. 

“ I wasn’t all alone,” Miss Jackson replied, 
with dignity. “ Mr. Alden was with me till 
rather late. I wonder, Amy, that we never 
heard of his wife’s death. She died two 
years ago. He wants me to go away with 
him ; but I told him that it is impossi- 
ble.” 

“You refused him ! ” Mrs. Leighton cried, 
excitedly. “Lucy Jackson, that man is 
worth millions ! ” 

Miss Lucy turned, in a casual manner, a 
ring on her left hand, and small lightnings 
flew forth from it in every direction. “ He 
was always worth millions to me,” she said, 
calmly. “ Fie is coming to-morrow ; and I 
suppose ” 

She did not finish the sentence, but looked 
at the ring, and gave it another flashing turn. 


An Evening in Rome. 291 

To-morrow ! ” thought Juliet. “ We shall 
have to go into the dining-room.” 

^‘To-morrow!” thought Mrs. Leighton. 
** We shall have to go out to the Pincio.” 

It was daylight before the little conclave 
broke up ; and then all three had confessed. 
Said Juliet, ‘‘ Did I not tell you, my friends, 
that by the grace of Diana we were going to 
have a golden time?” 

Lucy clasped her hands, forgetting the 
ring. 

“ My dear,” she said, “ say, rather, by the 
grace of God ! ” 







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